I’ve been having a bit of a blogging identity crisis recently. When it comes to blogging, who am I? What is my genre? Who is my audience? Why do I write at all?
When I started my blog back in 2015 (!) my focus was very clear. I wanted to secure a position as a full-time children’s librarian, and I used my blog as an online portfolio where I could share my story time outlines and share program ideas and musings on children’s librarianship.
That narrow focus quickly grew boring, and I gradually started to shift towards sharing more books reviews, and participated in a number of weekly book blogging community posts, like Top Ten Tuesday and Nonfiction Wednesday and Poetry Friday. My blogging identity switched from strictly children’s librarian to a broader book theme.
After I published my first book I started to include more writing, editing and publishing themed posts, including my very sporadic Writing Wednesday series, where I mused on my (albeit very limited) experience as a published picture book author.
And amidst all of that I have thrown in some fashion, tea, cat, travel and parenting posts here and there, as I felt like it. I shared quite a few posts detailing my experiences in Japan, and I’ve started sharing a few posts celebrating my dream little old lady librarian aesthetic.
All of this variety in subjects and topics has left me wondering what exactly my purpose is in keeping up this blog. Is it a librarian blog? A writer’s website? A book blog? A personal blog? And if I don’t have a specific vision for my blog, why should anyone bother reading?
The answer I’ve come up with, after a bit of soul-searching, is that my blog represents all these different themes and more, because it’s my blog, and I am a true Gemini spirit with a million different interests and facets. I originally started blogging because I wanted other people to read my writing, but after all these years I’ve decided that the best reason to write is because I enjoy it. And because I enjoy writing about this, that, and the other thing, that’s what I’m going to do.
I hope my writing can be entertaining, helpful, interesting and/or useful to others, but if not, at least it’s enjoyable for me to create!
Are you a blogger? Have you ever had a blogging identity crisis?
What a beautiful answer.
Yes, I’ve had blogging crises before, and I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. 🙂
Been thinking about branching out a bit more. I don’t particularly like T10T posts, but they’re what get views.
I feel you! The link-up posts are the ones that get me the most views, but…they are often a bit of a chore to write. 😩