Is blogging taking over your life?

blogging, Writing for the love of writing

Anyone who has started a blog knows that to be successful at it, you need to work hard. There are many areas where a lot of attention and effort is required.

When I started my blogging journey, I knew that I had to write something which would be worth reading. A good content is the backbone of a good blog. What I didn’t know was that there are a lot of aspects to blogging which have to be mastered if I didn’t want my life to be overtaken by my blog.

These are the things I can recommend to new bloggers;

1. Blog Content;

Always try to write from your heart. Create blog content which means something to you. While you may have a niche and think that you can write on a certain subject with more ease and confidence, I would suggest that you should bring variety to your writing. The easiest way to do this is to follow the daily prompts given by different bloggers. This exercises your mind to write on random topics and not only enhance your creativity but also opens your imagination to new things.

The blogs I follow for my daily and weekly prompts are;

Fandango, of This,That and The other

Word of the day challenge

Ragatag daily prompts

The Haunted Wordsmith

Sheryl for Your daily prompts

~M, Putting my feet in the dirt

Patricia’s Place , In other words

Hélène Vaillant for What do you see

BrewNSpew for their weekly prompts

A Guy called Bloke and K9 Doodlepips

These are a few of the blogs that give me daily inspiration. There are many others who are doing a great job of keeping our creative juices flowing by issuing daily and weekly prompts.

2. Follow and getting followers;

One thing that all bloggers think matters are who you are following and who is following you. Starting from day one, seeing the notifications about who has started to follow your blog gives a boost to our confidence. It validates our writing and makes us happy that someone out there in the cyberspace is interested in reading what we are writing. The trick to get new followers lies in writing good content and interacting with your fellow bloggers. If you want others to read and visit your blog, than you should do the same. It is the same as if you are in a party. If you hold yourself aloof from others, the chances of knowing and becoming friends with other guests are very slim. Move around, mingle and interact.

3. Plan ahead;

Now that you are writing, and being read, you need to plan out both aspects of your blog. Writing is the most vital aspect, so plan for it. Write any idea that comes to you in a draft and save it. There are many flashes of inspiration that we get during a day. Even if you cannot think beyond a single sentence, save that sentence and write about it later when you have more ideas on it. Have a few fully written or near completion, posts in your draft folder. There are days when you can’t write more, so you have a fallback ready.

4. Post regularly;

It may be daily, weekly or any other time frame that works for you, but it should happen at regular intervals. Unless of course you don’t find time for writing. But to have a successful blog, being regular is important. When I started to write, I was writing a few times in a week. Now with daily prompts, I can manage 3-4 posts a day.

5. Keep time aside for reading the blogs of those you follow;

This is an important part and the interaction is going to make you friends in blogging family. Visit your friends, comment on their articles and participate in the discussion taking place in the blogs you follow. Keep time for reading, and manage your time. It sometimes happens that a blogger is so engrossed in catching up on all the blogs they follow that all day is spent in this pursuit. It’s like a dog trying to chase its tail, trying and never succeeding.

6. Time management;

This is the most important part of blogging. Learn to manage and allot time for all aspects of the blog. Enjoying what you are doing is vital. If you don’t enjoy your blog, it will become a labor, and not love!

7. ENJOY!

If you are not enjoying your blog than you are doing something wrong.

Let me know if you find any of these tips helpful. How do you manage your time?

Waiting for your feedback and comments.

#keepitalive

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Published by Sadje

I am writing to express my opinion, share my experiences and to maybe provide some insight. My blog is addressing women at 50 ( but men are welcome to read my posts) ,their issues and the questions that come up at this stage in life. I don’t aim to teach, but to learn together.

Published

60 thoughts on “Is blogging taking over your life?”

  6. Great post! Sometimes I wonder if you post multiple times a day if some of your content doesn’t kind of get lost though? Even WordPress’s reader tends to condense all your posts and show less of them if you post multiple times a day. Ideally, I would like to post every day, but I shoot for at least every other day and then write extra whenever inspiration strikes. As far as growing, I think interacting with other bloggers is even more important perhaps than what you write. You can write the best stuff, but if no one knows you exist, you won’t get eyes on your posts.

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  8. Excellent post Sadje : – many thanks for the mention.

    An interesting topic to write about.

    I think there are a lot of points to writing and maintaining a blog and everyone has a different strategy process in operation. One of the hardest things for many to manage is balancing between reading others content, writing your own content and interacting with the content as an overall % That is by far the one aspect l always struggle with and fail at many a time especially managing to read others content.

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  12. Great advice! I find that as I have a niche, sometimes it’s harder to join in the fun . . . as doing so will spoil the aesthetic that I’m after on the blog overall. Participating in Blogmas has been challenging but has enabled me to join in and also keep to my niche. I would also advise that bloggers join in blog parties as these should help promote your blog and gain you a few readers and followers. 🙂

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  17. Thanks a lot for such an amazing article… I am new here and it really helped.. I am actually following the blogs you have enlisted.. and will try to incorporate all the points you have mentioned… Happy holidays ☺️

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  20. Thank you very much for your very good article’s and comments.
    I follow this with great interest and attention. Unfortunately, I can not fully understand everything directly and answer directly. But try to read them and give an acknowledgment of receipt.

    It’s very complex for a new blogger,
    and I’ll do that slowly and methodically.
    I’m of the opinion that it’s always
    a good thing.
    It depends on what we do from the blogging itself.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  21. Great advice for bloggers, Sadje!
    I don’t really class myself as a blogger per se, although I’ve really enjoyed participating in some of the parties, awards and challenges this month after closeting myself away for NaNoWriMo during November.
    However, I’m going to have to pull my horns in come the New Year and concentrate more on my writing.

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  22. Great advice. I think keeping everything in perspective is important and having a healthy balance between blogging and life. As well, one needs to examine “the why.” Why are you blogging in the first place? That particular reason can change and evolve over time.

    For myself, with my current crew allocation, I work only four days a week. But, my hours are long. When I get home at night, although I would love to sit and write, read and comment on blog posts, that isn’t fair to Lynn. So, my time on the blog is early mornings on my days off.

    It’s all balance. For me, I need to write from my heart and what I’m feeling for the most part. Daily prompts and such, don’t work for me because they take far too much thought to wrestle words out of me. They become more of a chore than something enjoyable. Although many bloggers love them.

    One thing I’ve read from exceedingly successful bloggers is “content is king.”

    Great post and some great tips.

    Liked by 2 people

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  25. Good points and advice. I blog just because…no real reason other than I like to write. Then there are times I just step back and take a breather. This isn’t something I have to do so when I get bogged down I take a break. Thanks for the mention and link.

    Liked by 1 person

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