December 2020, I purchased the domain name nurocrochets.com without thinking or knowing anything about blogging. All I know was people still read blogs even after the social media revolution.
I just paid a whopping $50 (mind you, I was still in university); said to myself that it was my belated birthday present myself. I wanted a place to document how I did things with Nurocrochets, the ups, and downs of this small business.
Just start writing
I didn’t start right away though. I waited for a while as I wanted everything to be perfect, neat, and clean. One important thing I forgot was I need to start doing the thing I want to do, to write.
I read all the blog posts about starting a blog and watched a plethora of videos from different YouTubers I follow. All of them pointed in the same direction, just start writing. Oh! the golden rule of just start writing!
Whenever someone says just start writing; the pessimist inside me sighed, “It is easy for you to say; you have so many followers”. I didn’t realize the fact, they too must have started somewhere; from zero. They must all have these insecurities about what will others say and who will read my blog.
The difference is that they all started; just started writing!
Here is a playlist from YouTuber and Blogger Cathrin Manning that I watched over a dozen times every time the thought of blogging comes to mind.
In this video series, Cathrin breaks down the nuances of blogging for absolute beginners and gives tips on how to drive traffic to your blog. She also has videos about starting a YouTube channel if you are interested in that too.
Sometimes we forget that before becoming masters of something, we were all students.
Okay! I am all hyped up for this blog and my first post, I wanted it to be a combination of a few lines of story/inspiration and a crochet pattern (remember, Nurocrochets). I wanted the blog to look super cool, cute, and rich at the same time. Every other theme I searched was too costly for my already shrinking budget. So, I chose a clean-looking free WordPress theme.
I edited pages, posts, and every single attribute so many times as I want it to be perfect. I wanted my blog to look better every time I saw the preview of the posts I have written. Sometimes we forget that before becoming masters of something, we were all students. Learning is a process that takes time and patience.
Next came the question of what to write. I am now in a valley of despair; not knowing what to write. I know that I should write something as I paid the money for my blog upfront. I waited for 10 months to write a blog post. I read the book “Show your work” by Austin Kleon which helped me to transform my perspective about blogging. I became the artist who wanted to document her art from someone who wanted to write something.
Better is the enemy of the good
I wanted my blog to be perfect; It took me a long time to understand that better is the enemy of the good. I needed an extra push to edit and publish, which came along the way with this video from my favorite productivity YouTuber Ali Abdaal.
On September 27, 2021, I sat down for 15 minutes and write down my first blog post – The ginkgo leaf pattern.
Just like that, I now have a virtual identity that I had dreamed of for so many years. My place in the World Wide Web to display my art and emotions alike.
All I say is that I did it, so can you!!!
Lovely! I agree that Better is the Enemy! ‘Done is better than perfect’ 🙂
Yes, it is. After reading your blog post on how your friend lost her shop, I had to take steps to have my own place in Internet. Your posts were so informative.