My Blog Graveyard

I have an unhealthy obsession: creating and abandoning blogs at a rate of about one to two per year. None of these blogs make it very far before there time is up and I've moved on. Twenty posts at my personal journal blog I made in college. Four posts at my fitness tracker blog. Five posts at my personal opinion and TV review blog. One post at my brain-computer interface news and opinion blog. Twenty-one posts at my art blog. Eighteen posts at my second attempt at a personal journal blog. Four posts at my summer baking, cleaning, and organizing blog. A very proud fourty-four posts at my study abroad in Japan journal blog. That is a total of eight blogs, created and abandoned, none with more than fifty posts, half with five or fewer.

So what compels keep starting new blogs, only to lose motivation and interest so quickly? Let's chalk it up to unrealistically high expectations. I read a lot of great blogs all day, and have tried to model my blogs after those from the start, instead of just letting my blog grow naturally.

While the blog as a writing platform may have started as a simple journal/diary-type outlet, many blogs have become something more like mini-magazines, full of high-quality images and self-contained, topic-specific articles. But unlike traditional print magazines, a great blog often feels well within reach for the average ambitious woman. After all, many of these blogs are maintained by a single, hard-working, creative woman. It's easy to see ourselves in her place, taking beautiful photos of our latest baking endeavor, or posting a step-by-step documentation of our DIY bedroom redecorating project.

The tough part in being familiar with so many amazing blogs is that they become the unattainable standard. For many bloggers, including myself, the quest for perfection, popularity, and a high-quality blog right out of the gate usually proves to be the most powerful deterrent to our motivation possible. We spend copious amounts of time and energy to getting the layout just right, designing a logo, and setting up ad space, but not nearly enough time, well, writing a blog! We worry that if our blog isn't specific enough to one genre or topic, nobody will want to follow it. And we're sure that if our posts don't have enough of those dreamy photos, no Etsy store owner will even consider gracing our page with her advertisement. And for someone with an ambitious, but easily swayed personality such as myself, that equation equals a graveyard of abandoned blogs.

But the reality is, most of those “perfect” blogs started off as small, personal, often non-specific journals. Sherry and John of Young House Love simply wanted to share their first remodeling project with family and friends in a more convenient way than e-mail. They never dreamed of ad revenue, invitations to write guest articles and appear on TV shows, or the huge readership they have gained. Tieka of Selective Potential and Keiko Lynn both started out with the most standard of journal-style blogs, both of which evolved into wildly popular fashion blogs.

While it's true that a good blog takes a lot of work, those of us who are just starting out need to remember that no matter how hard we work in the beginning, success doesn't happen overnight. Most importantly, we need to keep in mind that being preoccupied with success is the about the worst thing we can do for our blogs. After all, how successful can a blog be if the author doesn't let her passion for writing shine through all of the bells and whistles?

With my latest blog, I've been trying to take all of these principles to heart. I started out with a generic layout, and tacked on to a domain name I already owned, with the simple name “A Note from Natalie.” Instead of worrying about looks, I focused on writing. After about 30 posts, I've switched to a real name and domain, redesigned the layout, and learned many, many things about why I like to blog and what kind of blog I want to write. So far, I show no signs of losing interest, giving up, and starting blog number ten. I think I can finally give up my role as undertaker of my blog graveyard.