Thoughts on 18 months of witching blogging!

Witching thoughts do look just like the photo I chose for this blog post. They are chaotic, blur out easily and are in general not made to exist in this world. Good luck catching them! It can be exhausting, I know what I‘m talking about … Still, I have been thinking for a while now that this might be the right time to write down some thoughts on my blogging experience so far. Part of my experience includes that people reading blogs (including me) crave for personal posts that give insights which are usually not so easily to be found and which would not necessarily make their way onto another platform.
And there already is another thought arriving! Am I still sure what I started this blog for?

I wanted to write a Dystopia diary in spring 2020, when everything felt too, well, dystopian for me to grasp. Then, I wanted to write a historical novel about witches and thought the whole research and other work needed for that was interesting enough to be featured on a blog, since it would always be so much more than what could really fit one singel novel. But with Dystopia continuing, I ended up writing very dark poetry, and recently even joined the mental-health-bubble on wordpress while documenting my insights in why I feel the urge to write these dark things -and here is the first real point I want to to make with writing this:

1. I cannot work hard on all fronts.

At least not constantly. People have many dimensions and many different things to say. I recently had to notice that my time for landing a WordPress hit with one dark poem was over for now. I have said everything I had in that format for now. I still miss those times when one (sometimes even suicidal) poem would get me countless views and even likes here on my blog, but I can‘t force it.
Also, I realized that some posts which were completely ignored by my readers in WordPress gathered a lot of views from other referrers, such as Twitter or Facebook. Maybe, you are happy with writing just on your own and never bother to look at your stats, but I often do, and I catch myself pondering why something did not work out the way I wanted to or the way I did last time – So, I remind myself that I cannot succeed everywhere with everything, always.

2. Following writing recipes does not work!

It‘s heartbreaking, but just because a certain strategy has worked once does not mean that it will always be like that. For me, a wonderful moment which I would like to repeat was when I wrote a poem that fit both tags I like to use on my blog. It was a poem and it was about something historical. For a while, with this combination I had a wide reach, but at some point, I began to forcefully fit my ideas into this scheme, and that did not work. Letting go if it and searching for other formats to write what I want to say was necessary.

3. I have to value my own journey.

Okay, now I sound like some motivational wellness-blogger speech. Don‘t worry, I won‘t recommend trips to exotic places you can‘t afford with friends you haven‘t seen in two years! Still, this statement is something I also have to remind myself of. Had I chosen another tone, another topic and another strategy to blog, I could have expanded my reach ten times of what it is now, but I have to be proud of how far I got. I connected with people I would have never met without starting this blog, and I had this magical moments of writing something and experiencing to souls touching. Everyone is on their own journey, and no matter how easily our brains are trained to do this, comparing yourself to each other is pointless!

Okay, that still sounded like written from a sunny spot next to palm tree, but it had to be said, I think.

My final thought:
I think I succeeded in writing an authentic Dystopia diary, and I am still busy working on my historical novel. I am just drafting chapter two. These are the things that count, right?