I came into this class expecting it to be an opportunity to start and maintain a blog with the structure of a class keeping me in check. I have always wanted to have a blog, but I knew I could never actually maintain it and consistently post without something making me do it, or at least to start. Along with the blog itself, there are a few other takeaways I want to highlight.
Firstly, dealing with online platforms is insanely frustrating at first. I chose Wix, which is said to be the most user-friendly, and still spent a ton of time at the beginning of the term figuring out how to develop my site. If Wix is the easiest, I don’t even want to imagine what other more complicated website builders are like. It is, however, a labor of love, and after many frustrating hours, I began to navigate the editor and dashboard much more easily. I think that because I put so much toil into the site, I am even more proud of how it turned out.
Secondly, I had a bit of imposter syndrome when I first started writing posts. I have spent so much time on other people's travel blogs that when I went to write a post, my first thought was “hang on, what makes you think you have any authority on this subject”. My blog had the potential to make it seem like I travel way more than I do. Once I started writing, however, I remembered that I did put countless hours into planning this trip, did actually go to some incredible places and discover new things, and really do have at least a few insightful and hopefully unique things to put out there. These doubts made me super hesitant to share any of my posts on social media because I didn’t want people to think that I claim to be some sort of expert. Once I did, however, I get so much positive feedback, some even from people I barely knew, and realized that people were just enjoying my posts, rather than thinking “this girl is just trying to make herself look cool online”. I also just told myself “Lauryl, it doesn’t matter what people think, and yeah… you are cool.” And
Lastly, I learned that it is so much easier to write a blog post when you trick yourself into thinking you’re just doing it for fun. During our blog a day week, I had some serious writer’s block, even if I knew what content I wanted to produce because I was focusing so much on my post as something I just had to get done. I am glad that we did this challenge because it really helped me to figure out my writing style for this blog, and ever since that week I have found it a lot easier to formulate posts. When I start a post a few days ahead of time, it feels like more of an opportunity and less of a task, and everything flows out more freely. As you can see by these conflicting statements, I’m still not sure how to feel about writing for a deadline versus writing without one, but maybe it the combination and the timing of the two. Once I got a handle on my style after the blog a day a week, and when I was writing ahead of time and just telling myself it was fun, I enjoyed writing and reading my post so much more. I am hoping that once this class is over I can keep this mindset and keep writing with not just a distant deadline, but none at all!