I first set up a blog in late 2010 when I was a student at the University of Nairobi. Setting up that blog turned out to be as easy as falling off a log because I relied on Google's blogging service known as Blogspot. Back then, blogging was just a hobby for me, an outlet for the thoughts that were simmering in my head.
A number of people complimented me for the blog. One fellow called Meshack Hungu, for instance, who I met at the Kenya National Library in Nairobi, remarked to me on one lovely day in 2011 that a story I had posted on the blog was excellent. His positive feedback warmed the cockles of my heart.
For some reasons unclear to me now, I stopped updating that Blogspot blog some time in 2011. Maybe I ran out of ideas. Or maybe I was dissatisfied with the Blogspot services. Whatever the reasons, I am now glad that I stopped using Blogspot services because later on in 2013 when I began building a new blog from scratch using my web design and computer programming skills, I felt exhilarated whenever I coded something for the blog and it worked.
The day in March 2013 when I shared the web address of my rebuilt blog on social media, I walked on air. You should have seen my face that day - it was glistening with excitement! And I was further enchanted when some friends hailed the blog as a masterpiece. Some commented that its design was simple and appealing.
What I didn't know back in 2013 is that designing and coding a blog only accounts for 10% of blogging success. Much of the work in blogging lies in coming up with content that will keep people flocking to the blog. And creating original, truthful and entertaining content is where I fell short.
Having learnt that important lesson, I rebranded this blog in 2016 to what it looks like now with the aim of posting original contents that are inspiring, entertaining and enlightening. I have kept at it with the zeal of a he-goat on heat. And if there is anything I have learnt from that effort, it is that it takes a great deal of hard work to be a consistent blogger.
I have also learnt that blogging requires perseverance. It has been a bit discouraging for me when nobody has liked, shared, retweeted or commented on a story or video that I have posted on this blog. It has also been discouraging when a day has gone by without me earning a single dollar from the adverts on this blog.
Those shortcomings notwithstanding, I have found blogging to be fun. For one thing, it has provided me with a platform for exercising my talents in writing, singing, piano-playing and computer programming. It has also fuelled my passion for collecting quotes by prominent people, living and dead.
Then, I find it magical how, at the clicking of a few buttons, the stories and videos I post on this blog become instantly available to people all across the world: people from as far as New Zealand to Canada, from Brazil to Japan, from South Africa to Sweden, from Jamaica to Indonesia. It truly is magical.
That fulfillment I have found in blogging is what has led me to convert it from a hobby to a profession. I intend to continue honing my skills in writing and music so that I can compose the sort of riveting stories and beautiful songs that will keep people swarming to this blog like ants.
My blogging role model is Maria Popova, author of "The Marginalian" - a blog that attracts millions of visitors every month and which has been catalogued in the Library of Congress as a material of historical importance. Although unlike me Maria Popova is an unbeliever, I have learnt a lot from her. And I have taken to heart the following advice she gave to the 2016 graduating class of University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication:
Develop an inner barometer of your own value. Resist page-views and likes and retweets and all those silly-sounding quantification metrics that will be obsolete within the decade. Don't hang the stability of your soul on them. They can't tell you how much your work counts for and to whom. They can't tell you who you are and what you're worth. They are that demoralizing electric bike that makes you feel if only you could pedal faster - if only you could get more page-views and likes and retweets - you'd be worthier of your life.That endearing advice from Maria Popova has emboldened me to keep blogging with consistency even when my blog posts attract few likes on social media. And given the way Maria Popova has become a renowned blogger, I have this belief that I will also attain the same level of success that she has achieved if I keep persevering and working hard. So help me God.
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on blogging as a career, you might also enjoy another one on "The Careers I Will Pursue" which I wrote three years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.