on writing, blogging, and everything in between

YOU GUYS. I MISS BLOGGING. 

More importantly, I miss writing.

I started blogging a long time ago. I've always had a blog in some regard; my fascination of writing about my daily life likely having stemmed from my incessant keeping of a diary or journal throughout my adolescence and into adulthood. My personal, handwritten journals were never properly organized. To this day, I don't care much for bullet journals or organized templates. I wrote about what was happening in my life, how I felt about it, and documented my growth. Heartfelt diary entries aside, I wrote stories as often as I devoured them. I had spiral notebooks filled with "day in the life" stories about my best friends, teenage-hormone driven romance chapters, and song lyrics. I didn't write for anyone else (in fact, to this day, I feel awkward "sharing" my blog posts). I'm not even sure if I wrote "for me" - I wrote because I wanted to tell my story, and to create characters and their background stories.

Fast forward to now, and this blog, and what blogging has become...or should I say what Instagram has become. Where there's a blog, there's a conjoining "influencer" Instagram. On the flip side, where there's an "influencer" Instagram, there isn't always a blog, and to an extent, that's perfectly fine. To be blunt, writing doesn't come naturally to everyone, and there are plenty of popular, full-time "Instagrammer/Bloggers" whose posts I read and I think to myself, "yikes, perhaps it's time to invest in an editor." 

I've put this pressure on myself to become a certain kind of blogger, to be an "influencer," to grow my Instagram following. After all, "that's the dream," right? To be able to create content and get paid handsomely for it. Once you hit the almighty 10k on Instagram, not only do you get the fancy "swipe up" feature, but you also become eligible for 100x more campaigns (most of which rarely require a blog post, mind you) that generally pay pretty big bucks. If you're a shitty person (sorry, not sorry) you can easily buy those followers, because who can tell the difference, right? The true answer to that is nearly everyone, but that's neither here nor there. It can be a lot harder if you're someone who truly enjoys connecting with others, who thinks a curated scroll feed is just as important as a curated Lightroom preset, who is actually in it for the content creation...not simply what you get out of it. 

So we use the "right" hashtags and post at the "right" times, and browse through our explore tabs, and likelikelike commentcommentcomment in hopes of building relationships and gaining an authentic following. And I've seen lots of influencers (some of my friends included!) do this successfully and admirably. They put in the time and effort, hours a day, day in and day out, and it works for them. They get invited to all of the things, and get sent all of the things, and meet all of the people. I think to myself, "why not me?" 

But then I think to myself, "do I even want that?"

I didn't start blogging to review restaurants, or get #sponsored posts (even though it's super cool when I get to do any of that, and I am absolutely thrilled when I do get invited...I'm not one to turn down free margs in exchange for IG content). I am a recent yet semi-active user of Like To Know It, and I try to keep up with local events and posting on Instagram. But when I started blogging in 2013, I'm not sure I was even cognizant of such opportunities. I wasn't in it for extra money, because I was in sales and was already making great money. I was in it because I felt inspired by the bloggers who shared their daily snippets, not just their daily outfits; the ones who shared lightly edited snapshots of their nature walks and talked about their Sunday nights, and their opinions. That's why I started this blog.

I think it'd be unfair to say that I've been trying to squish myself into a lifestyle blogger box, because I've always been happy with the content I've posted. But when I get the urge to write, I want to create stories, to share snippets of my daily routine, to discuss the things I love, in a way that feels like I'm chatting with an old friend, because those are the kinds of things I want to read about. You know?

I actually wrote a variation on this exact post almost two years ago, so hey, at least I'm consistent. I'm not quitting blogging, nor do I think there's going to be a "giant shift" in my content. In a way, this is me telling myself (but also giving you a reminder, if you need it) that it is 100% okay to have a blog just for the sake of writing. 

It's great if you have lofty follower goals and a dream to go full-time, and it's also okay to do it just for fun. I started this blog as a hobby, and maybe that's all it will ever be (never say never, of course). I've always loved writing, and now that I'm out of graduate school, I think I'd like to tap back into writing creatively, even outside the blog. Getting vulnerable here: I'd absolutely love to write a young-adult fiction novel someday. The key, as I'm sure you've heard about many seemingly impossible tasks, is to just start, right?

If you're still here after alllll of that, BLESS YOU. And if you can relate (or even if you can't), drop a comment below, because it'll make me feel a whole lot less self-conscious about baring my soul.