Did you ever read a blog and think to yourself, "I can totally do that!"?
I did too, long ago. I used to read Perez Hilton and a few others and started to muse. I'm not a bad writer, can generally put sentences together in pretty interesting ways and I have a few deep thoughts I can pull out of the ol' cranium. Besides, I have about 30 nearly half done manuscripts for books in a hard drive at home, so why not?
Starting one wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination. I had no idea where to begin on this quest. But let me begin by telling you why I even bothered. It was a post I had made on FB which you can read here. I got a lot of appreciation for that post as well as the equally mind-numbing long ones that came after. One friend confessed that he read my nonsense while enjoying his morning coffee, genuinely looked forward to it. I won't lie, I was stunned and delighted. I mean okay I can be amusing but really? Someone actually anticipated reading my words? Mind. Blown.
After discussing this phenomenon with my gf S, who wasn't at all surprised by the positive reaction to this, I told her I would start a blog. It was also a good way to distract myself at work. Back then, in 2012, I was working in the pits of hell. I won't mention the name of the company but it begins with a P and ends with an oskauer. I'm missing a letter in there, in case you were wondering. I hated that place like the fires of 1000 hells. They treated me like crap and I had no interest in making a career in a place where you were looked upon as nothing but a billing nobody with no feelings, intelligence or voice. That's not to say that the other law firms I worked for didn't expect me to bill but I never felt as degraded in those places as I did in this particular one. I was simply biding my time before making an escape.
And in order to not hang myself from the rafters every single damn day while in that building, I instead would spend spare moments trolling FB. That became tedious and a great bit of writers block had me at a full stop with the books but the one thing I enjoyed was retelling some of the every day life occurrences that I experienced. May be it was my individual brand of the narration that made them fun to read for my counterparts but there was a definite joy in seeing all the 'likes' that popped up onto the right corner of the screen. This motivation turned the idea of blogging into a reality.
A side note: Prior to and long ago I had another blog. I've mentioned that one a lot in my earlier posts. It still exists in cyberspace but you won't be able to find it since it's supremely locked down and accessible only to those who I invited to read. That one also was a bit scandalous. At least here I'm a bit PC but there? Not so much. I dished a lot of dirt that ended up creating a stir amongst the readers, so I shut it down and stepped away from the world of blogging. Besides, after having had only about 750ish views of 215 posts, I figured I needed to let it go. There was no audience and I wasn't feelin' the idea of putting more crap out into the world for people to read. Trust me when I say that you wouldn't have enjoyed that blog half as much as you may possibly enjoy this one.
So yea, I decided that the whole idea of blogging wasn't for me until that fateful day in October of 2012 when I gave it another shot. The first post came back with approximately 17 views. Not bad, I thought, not bad at all. By the 5th post, I had 75 views per blog. Again, mind blown. What were people finding so interesting to read within my words anyhow, I wondered in total confusion. I received messages of encouragement from friends such as:
Keep it up, I love your writing...
You're pretty funny and I like your POV...
You really should consider writing a book...
Ah, I was so flattered, so very ridiculously over-the-moon honored and I'm not too proud to admit, I still am. Ever single day I'm blown away that anyone, absolutely anyone, takes their time to click on a link that leads them to my rambling. As of today, I can report back that I have 157 posts with 10,071 page views. Not bad, right?
Perez Hilton I am not. In fact I'm not known at all (however, that being said Latvia at one time was all about some Rubi Uzzi!) but that's okay. I do not advertise my blogging skills to the world, I don't have a huge mondo following, I stick to Facebook and my friends. I'm okay with all that. It was a bit strange to see that 'outsiders' were also finding me. How, I have no idea but Google Analytics told me so. In fact it told me that people from such places as France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Czech Republic, China (okay so it may just be spying in this case), Russia (more spying), India (no spying, I don't think) were all checking me out. I then started to get comments on the blogs themselves by 'Anonymous' but no two were the same because they more or less identified themselves as 'new fans'.
Fans? Say what?!?!
My mind couldn't possibly have been blown more than with those words. Fans. I didn't have fans. I had friends who took pity and read my crap and put up with my visions of grandeur. That's about it.
But as 2015 arrived, as I pondered next steps in life, I started to reevaluating those books in a hard drive on a shelf at home which is gathering dust. I have wondered if I'm good enough to open those files, start to edit, finish one for a change and possible approach someone and beg them to publish me.
Yesterday I posted a status message on FB asking whether my friends would buy a book written by me. I am once again gratified and honored. So far, those who have responded have given me a thumbs up (some literally some figuratively). I don't want to disappoint them as far as what type of an author I'll turn out to be although they may have no expectations at all. And there is no guarantee that a good blogger can translate into a good published writer. I recognize that but through the years I've had a few handful of friends who have in fact read my books and...well yea, they think I should just take my happy butt off and get published already.
I'm going to need motivation to keep me on this road to Amazon Books. I'm going to keep remembering that I may be good enough to one day see my name on hard back and most importantly I don't want to not do this and kick myself somewhere down the road.
Wish me luck.
Oh, let me clarify one small thing: blogging is tough. I think to some degree writing a book is easier since you start with a general plot in mind and yes while it may meander here and there, you have characters in place, a theme, an idea...but blogging is so very different as well as difficult. I can bang out chapters of a book easily enough (when I'm not dealing with writers block) but to come up with a new topic for a blog every day and then really get into it just isn't easy. I admire anyone who has been keeping one going for a long time, they are my heroes and I often wonder where they get the inspiration, stamina, frame of mind because as you may have noticed, I tend to disappear for months at a time simply because I have nothing to write about. May be I am a blogger by proof of this blog alone but I admit I sometimes feel like a total fraud and should leave this to those who are far better at it than myself.
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