The other day I was staring blankly into my computer screen without really processing anything as I felt that I was forgetting something important. I then casually looked at my windows taskbar to see the time when I realised it was February. I was blank for a moment before it hit me – if its February, its Blogiversary!! OMG! We are a six-year-old blog now.
Over the period of 6 years, I tried a lot of different things with my blog – from writing tutorials to indepth researched informative articles. I have done book reviews, product reviews, interviews, sponsored posts and gift guides. I have hosted and taken part in contests and bloghops and hosted giveaways. I have scripted stories and practices of Indian culture along with bogging or social media tips. I have posted photos of my collections, inspiration behind my work and many a times attempted to sell them. I have also written about workshops that I have attended or conducted. I have written series of articles, how to columns and sometimes personal stories – all for the simple purpose of keeping you and me informed as well as entertained.
But the past few months have been troubling at the blog front. I have been extremely irregular in writing, and find that I require severe admonishment from myself before I sit down to write or complete a half written post. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am writing this post more than a week before its due with the fear that it will take me long to complete writing it.
After all the hype about how “I love to write” and “how easy it is to write and get published” and attempting to teach journalism, documentation and social media, I feel as though I have somehow failed as a writer. I am struggling to form sentences not just when I write but even when I speak. This has become so bad that I am unable to even speak, fluent English. Is this some sort of Karmic justice, I wonder, the Universe’s way of making me see the error of my ways? Was I too proud of my skills and too critical of my students when they couldn’t write well?Â
I remember days in the past when the entire post would be ready in my head, word for word, even before I typed a title for the post. Now I feel that my work is boring, my designs are all the same and that I have nothing left to say. Maybe it is the guilt that I havent started working on my 2016 spring summer collection yet. Maybe I did so many guests posts for other sites this last year that I lack the motivation when it comes to writing for myself. Maybe this, Maybe that, Maybe God knows what! The end result is the my posts are repetitive, either too personal or very distant and I am almost always rambling, much like this post.
With that said, it is indeed ironical or quite hilarious to take a look at my blog analytics – the readership has grown steadily this year and for the very first time since I started this blog six years ago I have had 30,000+ pageviews in January 2016. Not a big number by successful blog standards but its the first for Jewelsofsayuri as it usually averaged around 16K a month the previous year. We did have couple of generous giveaways worth 100s of dollars of this blog and I get frequent bridal set enquiries from people who come across my blog. All this and the regular mails for guest posts from bloggers and companies, which makes me think – I must be doing something right!
One of my past professors and now colleague often says that ” If a process or phenomena cannot replicated, then its not design, its an accident”. I just wish I knew what I am doing right so it doesn’t remain a happy accident. If you know, please tell me 🙂
PS: Writing this post has been really cathartic, and in the last week I have been slowly getting back my mojo. I have been able to write and publish the last 2 posts on the blog. I hope that I will continue to blog about things and thangs you find interesting
Cheers
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