So You Want To Start A Blog
// Part One - by Ashlee Gadd //
The year is 2009 and after confessing my not-so-secret dreams of writing to a friend, she tells me, “You should start a blog.”
One week after that conversation, I did. A health blog, in fact, which—if you know me at all—is quite hilarious to this day. I can’t remember how long the health blog had been up and running, but the personal blog followed shortly thereafter. I named it “Where My Heart Resides”—a little emo, a little poetic, the perfect name for musings of a young twenty-something.
In a shock to absolutely no one, the health blog didn’t last long. The personal blog, on the other hand, took root. A pleasant surprise to even me. At the time I was newly married, fresh out of college, stumbling around figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had no end goal in mind for my personal blog. It was, point blank, something to do. I wrote fast and freely about all kinds of random things: marriage, clothes, books, food, friendship, miscellaneous reflections. The blog had no real direction, and no clear purpose. I wrote purely for the love of it, for the fun of it, because I enjoyed it and no other reason.
This was well before Instagram, before TikTok, back when people used to subscribe to Google Reader and leave regular comments on blogs themselves. Most blogs had sidebars with links to other blogs, a nod to their friends. Blogging felt like a club, a community, a place where we had each others’ backs.
Any time someone left a comment, I responded to it. I felt so honored that anyone would take time out of their day to talk to me. This is when I really fell in love with personal blogging: when it shifted from me writing into the abyss of the Internet, into a two-sided relationship (friendship?) with total strangers.
As time went on, I started to take my personal blog more seriously. I started to cherish it, to share more honestly, more vulnerably. And, as a result, readers began sharing more honestly and vulnerably with me, through a combination of comments and e-mails. I’d write about something difficult I was experiencing in my marriage or friendships, and by the end of the week, I’d be flooded with messages that all said some rendition of “I’ve felt that way, too.”
My personal blog became free therapy of sorts. A place to both give and receive.
I’d always believed in the power of stories, but it wasn’t until I started offering my own that I truly appreciated what could happen when two humans connect over a shared experience or emotion. This ongoing point of connection became a significant part of my life. When I think back on every job I had out of college, and all of the decisions I made across my twenties, starting a personal blog—in hindsight—was a real turning point. It left a mark on me.
Also, and I do not say this lightly, had I never started a personal blog, Coffee + Crumbs would not exist.
Eleven years later, my personal blog is still my favorite place to write. I think of my blog as my writing home, where I get to set the rules. I can take my shoes off and jump on the couch and eat ice cream for dinner if I want to. It’s where I am the most comfortable (braless, in stretchy pants). I am not beholden to anyone else’s audience or anyone else’s guidelines. I can write as little or as much as want, as infrequently or as often as I like. I can experiment with poetry, with humor, with photos, with whatever I want. I can show up as my full, whole, nuanced and complicated self because it is, first and foremost, my space.
Every time I’ve had writers block, or felt stuck in my creative work, I’ve found my way back to my own voice through my personal blog. There are less readers there, but that’s part of why I love it so much. That space feels safe and sacred to me, like being in the four walls of my own home. It’s where I feel the most grounded, the most secure, the most myself.
I guess one could say, out of all the platforms and mediums, my personal blog is the one place I can fully exhale.
// Part Two - By Sonya Spillmann //
The year is 2009 and I confess to a friend that I want to write. For my kids … I tell her, thinking for myself sounds too selfish. On my next birthday, she gifts me a beautiful notebook and I will burst into tears, knowing she heard my heart. I will say thank you, but what I don't say, or can’t say—to anyone—is what I really want: to write publicly. To put my words out there. In the world. For anyone to read.
But I can’t do it. Something stops me. Maybe it’s my age (from where I tell this story, I’m just north of thirty - no one I know has a blog), maybe it’s that I don’t yet have a Facebook account or Instagram and I’m not used to putting any part of my life online. It could be that I have two little kids and can’t imagine where I’d get the time. Maybe it’s that I don’t read blogs and all I can think of if I even entertained the idea of staring one was “what will people say?”
I make starting a blog a Very Big Deal. So I write in my notebook. I fill my head up with stories. I narrate my life as if someone would one day read my thoughts like a memoir. I am a writer afraid to write — at least where anyone else could read it. I decide that unless I have a really good reason to make my words public, writing beyond my journal is selfish and self-serving. So I push my desire away.
Six years will pass. I will have another baby and make more excuses than you can count with Very Good Reasons why I shouldn’t write online. But I keep coming back to it. Fighting it. I convince myself if I start a blog, I’ll need to have everything figured out before I start. I wanted to pick the perfect name, have the right tagline, and articulate (to myself, if no one else) its compelling purpose for existing. (This is the underbelly of perfectionism, the one that doesn’t let you start.)
But right around this time, I begin looking at my life with a critical eye, examining what I want to stay, go, and what might need to change. Writing was at the top of a very short list.
So I write an essay for a contest of sorts — I do it to test myself — and when it’s chosen, I panic. And that’s when I realize: it’s way easier and so much safer to make excuses for why you can’t/shouldn’t step into the work you feel called to, rather than confront a fear of failure, judgement, and inadequacy.
But it’s the push I need. I ask a friend to help me with the technical side of setting up a blog (I also make this much harder than it needs to be) but then I start writing. It’s not amazing. I’m super self-conscious. And I don’t know how to answer if someone asks, “what’s your blog about?” I wish I could say Motherhood or Fashion or Food, but it’s none of those things.
It’s been five years. I still feel a panic anytime I hit publish. I still struggle when someone asks me what I write about. And I still drag my feet on getting something written and out into the world.
But I’m doing it.
If I’m being honest, I really want my blog to be more a recital than rehearsal. A showcase instead of a storeroom. I want it to be the gown and not ‘this old thing.’ But I know that when I think of my little space like that, when I put the pressure on and that insidious perfectionism kicks in, I don’t write. And that’s the exact opposite of what I know I’m supposed to be doing. I recognize this pattern now.
Starting a blog was a huge step for me. Keeping it going is a big deal too. I still can’t clearly answer all the questions you’ll read next. But getting started led me here, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.
Questions to think through before you start a blog:
Why do you want to start a blog? What is your end goal? Is it to practice writing? To establish an online presence for yourself? Build relationships with readers? Capture your family’s memories? If you don’t have a clear why, are you comfortable figuring it out as you go?
Who are you writing for? Are you writing for yourself? Your family? Other moms of young children? Take some time to explore the idea of your ideal audience. Could you describe your one ideal reader?
What will you write about? What topics are near and dear to your heart?
When people visit your blog, how do you want them to feel when they leave?
What does “success” look like for you in terms of blogging? Tip: revisit this lesson for inspiration.
When will you write? How often do you hope to publish new posts? How will you hold yourself accountable?
Maybe you don’t know the answers to some of these questions. Or your answers are more open-ended and fluid. That’s okay. Let these questions be a launching point and a place to focus, rather than absolutely necessary before you start.
