Just Half An Hour

I hope this won’t be too repetitive because I feel like I’ve talked about this a lot in the last couple of weeks but here goes…

The purpose of this blog is to get back to writing for the pure joy of it.

I found that I easily fall into the trap of starting a site or blog for one money-making venture or another and in the midst of always chasing the almighty dollar I lost my zeal for whatever it was I was doing.

That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with making money from a blog. Not at all. But my own history has been that I lunge in for the money and then lose the heart of what I want to do along the way.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. I’ve always enjoyed words. I’ve always wanted to write for the pure joy of it.

The mistake I made along the way was going down rabbit holes to figure out the best and most perfect way of doing something I loved and then getting lost along the way…

Distractions….

Use this host… Use this platform… Pick a niche… SEO… Monetization… Social media strategies… Traffic generation…

And on and on the distractions went until it all became a drudgery.

Not so this time. Not so…

I did everything the gurus said not to do, and I did so because it’s what I wanted to do and what works for me.

• They say “pick a niche”… I say “I don’t want to”
• They say “get a self-hosted plan”… I say “I prefer the ease of not dealing with all that techie stuff”
• They say “use these tactics for social media marketing”… I say “I’ll just keep it social”
• They say “generate lots of traffic so you can monetize your site”… I say “I just want to write what I enjoy and hope people will enjoy reading it in return”

At the end of the day, I don’t think all what the gurus say doesn’t matter.

Yes, I do want visitors and traffic and people to like what I write and maybe even one day make a pretty penny from it.

But none of that is the true purpose of this blog. The purpose of it is to just simply write for the joy of writing.

Future Goals For This Blog:

To keep on writing, if not everyday then on at least a regular cycle, be it three times a week or so.

I have plans after this 31-Day Blogging/Writing Challenge is over to do themed-days so even though I might not be writing/blogging here daily, I’ll be showing up on regularly-scheduled days with specific themes so I stay in writing mode.

In Other News…

We lost one of our family dogs last night…

She went outside to pee and was grabbed by a wild animal. It was dark so it was hard to see exactly what grabbed her but we think it might have been a coyote.

Everyone has been sad since yesterday, as am I, and inasmuch as we would like to replace her, even if we find a lookalike, the personality will just not be hers.

Have you been in this or a similar situation with a family pet?

If so, how do you deal with the loss of pets that feel like a part of the family?

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Catch up on my previous posts for this challenge:

• Day 1 – Why I’m doing this challenge

• Day 2 – 10 random facts about me

• Day 3 – The story behind the name of this blog

• Day 4 – Quotable Quote… Why it speaks to me right now

• Day 5 – Recent random act of kindness

• Day 6 – Three current guilty pleasures

• Day 7 – Collections… What I collect and why

• Day 8 – Throwback Picture

• Day 9 – Recently read book recommendation

• Day 10 – Three Favorite Blogs

• Day 11 – Wishful Thinking… If I won the lottery

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To see the complete list of writing prompts, go here.