I have been tagged by the incomparable Naithin of Time to Loot to do the perfect blog entry for the start of #Blapril2020. Thanks for the tag!
The Rules
- Thank the wonderful person who nominated you and leave a link back to their blogs.
- Explain your blog’s origin story or its history.
- Hand out two or more pieces of advice for new bloggers.
- Nominate other bloggers and hook us up with links to their blogs.
Origin of Nerd Girl Thoughts
Oddly enough, Naithin is also probably at least 75% responsible for the existence of Nerd Girl Thoughts in the first place (and I thank you for that as well!).
I had wandered away from my prior blog The Completion Chronicles in May of 2017. I had always intended to go back to it, but really, the whole concept had lost its shine for me.
That blog came to be after I had just come off of what I still feel was my most successful blog project – 366 Days of Gaming, in which I played a different game every day for a year – and I wasn’t quite ready to give up blogging yet, but I also was really unsure of what I wanted to be doing.
So blogging had been put on the way back burner for well over a year, when I saw Naithin tweeting about Blaugust 2019, and I felt like that was the kick in the pants I needed to get back to it. Instead of reviving one of my (many many) defunct blogs, I decided to start fresh with Nerd Girl Thoughts, and leave myself a little bit wider open to write about a greater assortment of topics.
Advice for New Bloggers
Don’t Overthink It: It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what you want your blog to be about, or what you want it to look like, or how you want to publicize your posts. The first step is actually getting words down about something that you care about. There are probably 8 million good reasons to start a blog, but if you ask me, the best reason is because you want to write. So, write something. Work out all the messy details later.
Look for community, not recognition: If you are considering blogging because you want to get internet famous, or as a side hustle to make big money, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Sure, you can absolutely treat blogging as a business, but – at least to me – that’s the quickest way to suck all the joy from your project and the odds are still against you succeeding. Unless you’re content babbling into a void (and I frequently am, so take that one with a grain of salt), you will need to build a community. Events like #Blapril2020 are great for community building – take the time to figure out who else is writing about things you are interested in, and then interact with those blogs & authors. Chances are, you’ll spark a conversation and maybe even get a follow back.
The Tags
I think this is a great topic & I personally was glad to have the prompt, but if you don’t feel the same, please feel free to just conveniently forget I tagged you, ok?
Syp, author of BioBreak.
Chestnut, author of Gamer Girl Confessions.
Rakuno, author of Shards of Imagination.
Paeroka, author of Nerdy Bookahs.
Quietschisto, author of RNG.
If I didn’t tag you, but you want to use this topic as well, feel free!
Nerd Girl Thoughts 
Wow, if I can take *any* percentage of credit for you being back to blogging again I’ll count that as a job well done. It’s been awesome having you around! ❤
As to the advice, "Look for community, not recognition" might be about the best way of putting it I've ever seen. I didn't in this most recent one, but I often bang on about not doing this for the likes, or comments, or that kind of thing. Do it for yourself first and foremost and the rest will come with time and perseverance (and, of course, interacting without the agenda of bringing these things in.)
But sometimes this advice gets to people in the wrong way, so I think the way you've put it in that succinct line is perfect. 🙂
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Thank you for tagging, I’m looking forward to knocking this out next week now that my keyboard issues are solved. 🙂
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