Hindsight is a funny thing, I was speaking with friends about writing, in particular writing for a blog; and I realised where I had been going wrong.

I’ve always written something, whether that be stories, poetry and more recently blog posts. But I’ve always struggled with the latter, I’ve found that writing a blog is a lot harder than it appears.

Before starting this blog, I had a few trial and errors. I wrote similar lifestyle and writing blogs on different sites.

However, after a few posts on each site, my motivation to write for them quickly unraveled; and I eventually ended up giving up and deleting my blog. 

I admit it was easy for me to do that, than the alternative of staring at the rather barren and sorry looking state of my blog because I hadn’t posted much; instead I decorated the site but didn’t leave much in the way of content to make people stay to read.

But after speaking to some friends, I realise that part of the problem with my lack of motivation, and as a result my non-existent stream of posts, was partly because I over thought it.

I got too wrapped up in this image in my head. But most importantly, I got hung up on the idea that people would read my blog. 

I focused on writing to these people, appealing to them, to come in and read the little I had written.

I banked on having readers before I even had them, I wrote to imaginary audiences and somehow lost my voice. 

My style felt almost fake because I was not focusing on writing for my own amusement or writing for the sake of writing. I wrote to sell myself to people. 

When if I’d simply stuck at writing because I enjoyed it, people would read it regardless.

Those sites that seemed to present a distorted voice of mine out into the world were only filled with the imaginary audience I built for them. A fake voice for a fake audience. 

But since I decided to write for enjoyment, as well as myself by putting my thoughts onto a page (instead of sticking it on a to-do-list), there have been real people reading what I have to say.

The difference is that I started writing on this blog for myself. I write as if I’m talking to myself, which may sound odd, but surprisingly works; because when I look back at these blogs, I see me, unedited and unaltered, and for the first time, I don’t cringe over what I write!

I suppose then, if I could pass on any advice to others, it would be to strip back the sales pitch and write as if you were having a conversation with yourself. If you’re genuine or if you’re fake, people will spot that and respond to it accordingly.

I suppose this is my online journal now?

– E