You may have noticed that I have been absent from my blog for the last two months or so and that is because I thought I had given up on blogging. So many reasons led to me making that decision and I feel like it was the right thing to do at the time, and now I'm back and have so many plans and beautiful things to bake for you all. I can't wait!
But before I return to the world of baking and blogging I wanted to share with you the thoughts that led me to giving up (and how I'm going to change my attitude towards them) because I really think that a lot of other bloggers probably (hopefully!!) share similar doubts and worries.
1. YOUR VIEWS AREN'T GROWING AS YOU'D HOPED...
I felt like I was making no progress at all, my views had plateaued and not seeing growth or new visitors can be pretty demotivating. I have since remembered that I didn't start blogging with the intention of becoming some super-famous, super-successful online baking queen. I just wanted to document what I was baking so my family and friends and perhaps a few strangers that happened to stumble across my blog could bake something that I created.
2. COMPARING YOURSELF
I got carried away comparing myself to the really successful blogs but I realise I don't have time, resources or money to expand my blog or even bake as much as I would like. Of course, I would love to be an established, well known blogger featured on other blogs and websites with cookbooks and the works but at the moment when I am a student with very little money baking when I can from my little flat it is just not going to happen! Maybe one day... I can dream!
3. PHOTOGRAPHY TROUBLES
I am no pro photographer, I have a fairly average camera and pretty crappy light in every single part of my flat (and no garden to utilise natural light). This means that photographing my bakes is a bit of a struggle, but I can get by. My photos are OK. My main frustrations are food gawker, tastespotting etc. My first ever submission to those sites was accepted and it was such an exciting moment - the photo was merely an iphone photo taken in a rush but the traffic generated from those sites was incredible. However, since then I haven't had a single submission accepted and no matter what I do I just can't seem to get it right. I have decided to just keep practicing and hope for the best this year!
4. EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM YOURSELF
I am very guilty of this. I started to blog and share my recipes and photos as a bit of fun and something to do in my spare time (as I am spectacularly boring!) but I started to worry about it and struggle to keep up with myself. It slightly took the fun out of my favourite thing - baking. I wanted to post too much, if a recipe wasn't 100% perfect I became stressed and felt like it was a "wasted bake" as I couldn't post it so would bake it again even though it was delicious in the first place. This meant I was baking too much for my little flat of four to keep up with! This year I am going to post twice a week and if I start to fall behind, IT IS OKAY!! The blog is meant to be fun and for me so I'm not going to let it stress me out :-).
I hope sharing these worries and thoughts that I experienced will be helpful to at least one other blogger who is maybe feeling down about their blogging, Keep it up, you're doing fine! I also hope you all had a lovely christmas and wish you a happy new year!
Teri x
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