7 Caveats About Blogging

Kelly wrote about seven reasons you should blog for fun, and she nailed it.  She nailed it so hard that I'm thinking a lot of people may be inspired to start their own blog, so I wanted to give a warning for some common blogger problems you will encounter on your new journey.

Well, you were wrong.

1) 

You will not have any readers or followers for awhile.  This is very disheartening as you have so much to say in the beginning!  And why doesn't everybody want to hear it?  And how do all these other bloggers seem to know each other, and how can you get them to know you too?

But don't worry, you will navigate your way around this Blog Land eventually!

2)

You will question why you are doing this, what's wrong with your writing style, why so-and-so has a million followers and you basically write about all the same things.  You will remind yourself to relax,  it's supposed to just be for fun.

It is!

3)

Receiving comments are gifts for the soul.  

Leaving comments can feel like a full-time job, but you know how much they mean to you, and you do it anyway.

4)

You will start thinking about, praying for, talking about your blog friends as if everybody in your real-life circles know who you mean.  Then you will feel silly explaining that you "only" know them from the internet.  

Oh man, this has happened to me way more times than I can count!  But internet friends are real friends too.  Right?  Right?

5)

You will write blog posts in your head as events are happening, making mental notes to remember cute kid quotes or funny stories.  You will have deep thought out on a run, or in the shower and tell your brain to remember that topic for the blog.

You will forget everything by the time you actually sit down to type.

6)

You will tell yourself that you are just doing this for fun, but at some point you will wonder how you could make money, receive free items to review, grow your blog, advertise, etc.  You might think you won't, but you will.

Greed...it can be deadly.

7)

You will want to quit many, many times.  You will worry about how much of your personal life you are posting and what's the limit.  As your kids grow up, you will write about them less, to protect their privacy.  Your kids will start hearing about your blog from their friends, and ask you to post (or not post) certain things about them.  You will second guess everything you write before you post.  You will worry constantly about hurting people's feelings.

But if you truly are doing it just for fun, just for memory's sake, then you will keep coming back.  When it's not fun and becomes a chore, it's time to peace out.  I have lost many, many good bloggy buddies for this reason, but I so get it.

If you think you can get past these little annoyances of blogging, and still want to start, then by all means, GO FOR IT!  Blogging has been such a blessing for me.  I'll never be hugely popular, but I love having my record-keeping here, and making blog friends really helped me after having my fourth child in five years and feeling very isolated at home.  It was so nice to meet so many like-minded people that truly got me and vice-versa.  If you have a new-ish blog to share with me, leave a comment, I love discovering new reads :)

Have a wonderful scone-baking, basketball playing, movie watching last chilly weekend of winter!