Everyone goes through phases in life, and it doesn't stop after graduation. It keeps happening and it shows up in all areas of one's life. A job change, a move, or a significant relationship can alter how you approach your life and how you go about daily life. That especially, applies to blogging. I've been doing this since 2011 and it's gone through it's own special phases as I figured out why I blog and what I want to offer. Blogging is different in 2019.
2011 started out very experimental and I posted a LOT as I was an extremely bored admin assistant at the time. So bored. This was the time of personal blogging to make connections with other people, and before Pinterest really took off. We didn't need to have amazing visuals to get readers. Smart phones were just starting to become commonplace and we were able to take some decent photos for Instagram! We had Google Reader!
I began blogging to have something to show potential editors to try and convince them to pay me. Back then I wanted to be a Columbia-centric blog with the newest restaurants and fun things to do. It got to be more than I could handle.
Then I started sporadically incorporating recipes, and progress on our 1950s ranch house. But progress was slow, and our yellowed knotty pinetastic kitchen sucked for photographing recipes.
I wrote some restaurant reviews and sought out going to the newest restaurants the soonest so I could be first in the search results for these places. I reviewed places that didn't have a lot of info on them for the same reasons. Then I started writing for the Free Times (ultimate goal achieved) and transitioned out of writing about those things here and back to recipes thanks to a kitchen reno — which I posted about a lot too, some personal updates, and sponsored content sprinkled in here and there.
Lately it's been pretty much only new recipes that I've posted here and I am wondering where to go from here. I love the recipes the most but they are also time consuming. I have to shop for the ingredients, make the recipe while writing it down, sometimes two or three times. Then make sure it tastes good before styling and photographing it. Finally I have to write up the post and blitz it all of the appropriate social media platforms. Truly, doing it more than three times a week would be another part-time job, even though I love to do it.
When Deb Perelmen of Smitten Kitchen was promoting her book I read in Bon Appetit that she treated her hugely successful blog as a place where she just woke up and wrote about whatever she wanted. And that's been something I try to keep in mind when coming up with things to post here. If she could be successful with that simple of a strategy, why can't I?
So in this 2019 to whenever phase of this blog, look for more recipes, including my Tasting History series, a little travel as I go to places near and far (mostly near this year), and even some personal essays as I've been feeling especially reflective on life, priorities, and what's to come. I also highly intend to organize my recipe page with photos of each one linking out to the specific post.