On Starting a Blog
Starting a small blog is not something I had on my 2026 bingo card. Especially not after my first failed attempt at blogging over 6 years ago. When I started that blog, I had three main goals in mind.
- To share the things I was interested in with others.
- To become a better writer.
- To feel more comfortable making my work public.
On the surface, it seemed simple. Start a blog, write about my hobbies and interests, and get better at writing by… well, by writing more. But as I’m prone to doing, I overcomplicated it. Instead of just making a website and starting to write, I got lost in the minutiae. What was the best platform to host a blog? How should the blog look? What topics should I write about first? How do I get people to find (and read) what I write? And much more. The more I researched these topics, the more I began imposing limitations on myself and my blog. Instead of writing about things that caught my attention, I started trying to find a niche. Instead of writing something I thought was interesting, I tried to figure out how to optimise my posts for SEO. And worst of all, instead of finding my own voice, I started to mimic how everyone else was writing online.
As you might expect, that blog died a slow death. At first I wrote a new post each week, then once a month, and then once every couple of months. Before long, I wasn’t writing at all - and not just for my blog, I’d stopped writing entirely. A year or so later, I shut the blog down. After all, what was the point for paying to host it when I wasn’t using it? I thought I’d managed to not only kill my interest in blogging, but my interest in writing in general.
But over the last couple of months, my desire to write has returned. Thanks in large part to my rekindled passion for reading. The more I’ve read, the more I’ve wanted to write; and the more I’ve wanted to write, the more I’ve thought about starting a new blog. But up until now, I’ve been hesitant to follow through on that idea. I didn’t want to make the same mistakes I did the first time around. And so I’m writing this initial post to act as a public accountability log for myself - not to commit to a schedule, a niche, or any grand ambition, but to set down a few principles before I begin.
First, I’m going to write about what genuinely interests me, even if those interests are inconsistent and difficult to categorise. Some posts might be about books, others about video games, technology, fitness, fountain pens, or whatever else captures my attention. I don’t want to find a niche just for the sake of having one.
Second, I’m not going to worry about algorithms, SEO, or whether a post will attract any readers. If someone finds what I write and enjoys it, that’s fantastic. If not, then that’s okay too. The goals is write because I have something to say and because I enjoy the process, and not because I think something will perform well.
Third, I’m not going to commit to a publishing schedule. Consistency is valuable, but last time I became more concerned with meeting self-imposed deadlines than with enjoying the process of writing. I’d rather publish when I have something to say instead of trying to fill a spot on the calendar.
And finally, I’m going to do the writing myself. I’m not going to pass it on to some large language “AI” model in the hopes it produces something captivating that could go viral. One of the reasons I’m here is to become a better writer. If I outsource the thinking and the words, then I’m missing the point entirely.
Whether this blog lasts six months or six years, I hope it becomes a place where I can share ideas, document my interests, and practice the craft of writing.
After all, those are the reasons I wanted a blog in the first place.