Reflecting on Three Years of Blogging

Today, WordPress reminded me that it was my third anniversary of flying with WordPress. To be quite honest, if they hadn’t reminded me, I would have completely forgotten and this day would have passed unremarked upon.

However, here we are! And we’re going to be chatting about the things I’ve learnt over these three years and the direction I’d like to head toward with this blog.

First of all, looking back on the past…

On 11 May 2017, I quaveringly (and naively) sent my little “Hello and Welcome” post (nope, I’m not linking it. If you go find it, good for you) into the world. It set in motion something that has become a big part of my life–with the friends I’ve made, the opinions I’ve expressed and heard, and the fun tags and games we’ve played. I absolutely love this blog, and furthermore, I love the whole community surrounding it.

This blog has followed me and documented some of the hardest times of my life. As most of you know, my dad died at the end of 2018, my nan died at the end of 2019, I struggled a lot with feelings of purposelessness, I started a new career–completely different to the career I’d been planning for years. I’ve had a horrible case of writer’s block for the past year which has made me feel very guilty and has really triggered my perfectionism (as in, the desire in me to be perfect has taken a hit because the thing that I so often use to define my “perfect” life just isn’t coming to me. Does that make sense?)

However, things aren’t perfect, but they are looking up, despite the COVID-19 situation. I’ve really got into my Bible lately and I’m plotting not one, but two, new novels! I’m really excited about both of these projects and it took me ages to decide on which one I should draft first. Eventually, with the help of my sister and two Pinterest boards, I chose one and I’m happily in the middle of getting to know my characters before I launch into plotting. I’m hoping that I’ll maybe begin drafting in either late June or July for Camp NaNoWriMo, and I’ll probably leave my second novel to NaNoWriMo this year. I’ll be dropping some more info soon, but until then just know that it’s got ships, mutiny, buccaneers and it’s a retelling of the life of a historical figure (two historical figures, actually).

Anyway, what lies in the future of this blog?

To be honest, I don’t really know. I’m taking life one step at a time at the moment, but I do have some ideas. For one thing, I’d really like to focus the content I create. For the last year or so in particular, I’ve been noticing that I go all over the place with my posts. Some people might not mind this, but I’d really like to be able to find more of a niche than I’ve currently got (at the moment my niche is “personal interests” and that’s just not good enough for me). Of course, it would focus predominantly on storytelling, since that’s my passion, but beyond that I’m not really sure. I’m thinking something along the lines of analysing storytelling patterns, tropes, and themes, as well as providing indepth thoughts on books I’ve read and that sort of thing. I also really want to keep going with my Australian focussed posts, particularly the Australian story ones.

I’m also thinking that I’ll withdraw a little from all the tags I’ve been doing. While they’re fun to do, I feel like they’re just bulking up my content rather than adding something useful. Of course, I really enjoy them so I will still do the occasional one (either that I’m tagged for or that I steal), but I’ll probably stop doubling up on tags, like I’ve been doing lately.

I would also love to introduce some more guest bloggers. I’ll be on the lookout in the next few months for people who want to do some posts on specific topics, so if you’re interested in being featured here (and having me featured on your blog in return, if you’d like) let me know in the comments 😀

So, to sum this little ramble up, I want to narrow my focus down to one or two things that I can specialise in and I want to keep creating Australia-themed content, since you guys seem to really love those!

How about you guys? How long have you been running your blogs? Do you have a niche? What do you hope to see from An Ordinary Pen in the coming years? What topics would you like to see me cover?