I can’t believe it has already been a year (as of tomorrow) since I published my first blog post. In realizing this, I decided to take some time to reflect on what I have learned while working on this website and this blog.
Life Skills
Writing blog posts is a time-consuming (though enjoyable) task. Best case scenario: I know exactly what I want to write and I’m done in an hour. The more likely scenario, however, is an hour to pick and research a topic, another hour to write the post, and half an hour to edit. And some posts (like this one) take weeks of procrastination as I try to find the motivation to write what I want to write about. I have a difficult time writing about myself.
All this showed me the importance of planning ahead. I do usually keep a store of blog posts for the upcoming three weeks, so I have something to fall back on if and when I don’t have the time to write one week. Keeping this store means having a constant flow of ideas, which often includes staring at a screen as I figure out what I should write about next.
These time-management and motivation-cultivation skills can be applied to other projects.
Learning About Writing
I may have started this blog to share what I have learned about writing, but I never expected to learn so much about this craft while working on my blog. Sometimes, I realized there were terms I threw around (such as syntax or literary devices) without really knowing what they meant. As I began to write posts, I began to question what I was saying and how I was phrasing things. These questions led to research and, eventually, answers. In the search for the answer to one question, I found answers to many more.
This, more than anything, showed me how much goes into the writing process.
Yes, I was incorporating all of these things into my writing over the course of the years-long writing process. However, writing a post each week required researching writing skills much faster than I ever had before and made it all seem much more overwhelming. Of course, it did also show me that there is an answer to every question.
Also, as someone who primarily writes young adult fantasy, I was afraid my posts would be too biased or limited in their applications. When writing about literary elements and techniques, standard word count ranges, and tropes, I had to think about and research how these might be different for genres I don’t typically write in. I made sure the information was general and included tips for writers of various genres.
Coming Up
Building off this goal of reaching authors from all paths, I want to do more to depict the perspective of authors from other genres and with different experiences. To do that, I’m going to open up to guest posts from fellow writers. If you would like to write a guest post, please email a short pitch and bio to me at yessicajain@gmail.com.
This past year has been a wonderful experience, and I hope this blog will continue and grow for years to come. Thank you all for riding with me on this journey.