Straight to Paper: Thoughts on Blogging

This post has been lingering in my mind and first-draft-folder (I don't actually have something like that) for quite some time, now it finally made it on here. I don't know if you would want to read it though, since it has become pretty long (and with every new sentence three new thoughts crossed my mind, so I might need to write about this again.) For anyone who makes it through: I would love to know your thoughts on the topic. Enjoy!

Let me start out by stating the obvious: Blogging is weird. At least for people, who are not involved in this world, it must seem like it. I mean, there is someone who deems his or her private thoughts and activities interesting enough to share them with the world. Narcisstic, much? Also: Bloggers document details from daily life that most people not even realize and then they cut time out of their day to sit down and write about them and edit photos and learn HTML in their free hours - and most of them do all the work for free. I stumbled upon my first blog years ago, I cannot even remember when exactly. Aspiring to become a writer someday, I was intrigued by the idea that someone would just create their own platform for whatever they wanted to present the world – may it be in words or pictures. A chance to be writer and editor, publisher and social media consultant all in one person (and since I have the very dislikeable personality trait to believe that I need to do everything myself to be satisfied with the outcome that was a definite pro for me).

{It took a few more years until I decided I wanted to give this blogging thing a shot myself. I thought I could do it easily. Boy, was I wrong.}

By the end of April last year I designed a very simple Blogger-Page and started writing about whatever came to my mind: from playing around with veganism to trips to the fleamarket to short stories that had been sitting in a folder on my desktop for far too long. My love for words was there, out of the question, but with the weeks passing there was not only joy arising from this little blog of mine, but there was another feeling slowly plowing its way to the surface of my mind: Frustration. I started to realize how much time and effort goes into such a little online place, especially if you do not only want to write, but also want people to read your stuff. And growing your website is, especially nowadays with the plethora of blogs, not fun. I also felt that the outcome often simply did not measure up the work I put in – I was (and often still am) not able to actually implement what I had in my mind. Sometimes I want so much, I get nothing. And sometimes I invest a lot of work and then throw it all overboard. I do all the things you are not supposed to do to “develop a strong brand” as all the blogging advice out there tells you.

I strongly believe that the blogging community has changed a lot in the recent years. The sheer amount of immensely talented and very professional bloggers out there makes it hard to just start out and see where things are going (at least if you are an ambitious perfectionist, who I am totally not. Or so I like to think.) Readers have a wide array of blogs to choose from, which is awesome, no question, but makes it also very hard for beginners who yet have to experiment and try things out, maybe for years, to get to the level of knowledge and ability of some big bloggers. I am aware that you could also just say “I write for myself – I don’t care if anyone reads this”, but if you really did not care, you would just keep a diary, right?

I dont really want to evaluate that shift, because personally I think it is awesome that more and more people and favourite bloggers can actually live off their blog and therefore have more time to provide awesome content - go you! But sometimes I miss the lightness in things that we must'nt forget. 

{Blogging is after all just the act of sitting down at a computer with an internet connection and pouring your heart on paper - or a Word document as you please.}

Sometimes I feel like some people are trying to iron out their edges to "fit". Invest hundreds of Euros in a professional blog design and an expensive camera without paying a thought to their content, because they simply think they don't even need to start out with a "standard design". Of course, everyone loves a pretty blog, but should not content be king? And I cannot free myself of it, sometimes thinking that I should write less wordy posts and put in more pictures or that I should post more in general or more regularly. And then I find myself panicking that I havent found "my niche" yet, even though every decent blogging advice post states that I should. And my thoughts keep spiraling until I remember that, after all, I really do this for myself (I also keep a diary by the way). But selfsame for others. For whoever finds pleasure in the words and the thoughts I put on here. In posts that are sometimes wordy and sometimes sparing. In watching me slowly improve my photography. Who enjoys participating in the quest I undertake, searching for my writing voice, my way of expressing, me living and learning along the way. And that is what I look for in others, too, blogging pro or not. Beautiful people, inside and out, inspiration, wise words.

Actually, I totally fell in love with Mia's "Candystore"-Analogy recently, because it is true. In some ways this whole blogging community is one beautiful, colourful, sweet thing that is easy to fall for - but can also make your tummy hurt if you don't know your boundaries. Same as we open Facebook and need to remind us: Everyone is always posting about the good days, the happy moments, never about the bad things, the dull stuff, the boring everyday. Step back from the computer and read a book, darling. Find your balance. Turn away from all the fancy furniture you do not have in your apartment, the pretty clothes your favourite fashion blogger is wearing. There is just one thing to be done, online and offline, and that is: Your thing. Whatever that may be.

But then again, sometimes Candyshops are awesome, aren't they?

What I have been up to: Just another Venice Post

{„Venice forces you to slow down. Of course, we have smartphones here and all the technology, but the structure of the city makes it impossible to get into the rush you have in a big city"...}

...explains our guide Virgina while we are following her through hidden alleyways and over crooked bridges, listening to stories of Giacomo Casanova and the Golden days of Venice. And it is true: You have mainly two ways to get around the city, by foot or by boat. And no matter how late you are running, as soon as you are standing on the Vaporetto platform, watching the shore while the waves are rocking the boat from side to side, you have no chance, but to find calmness.

Our lovely tourguide Virgina

These days the city is covered in a layer of fog, humid and cold, and sometimes so thick you feel like you can actually touch it. Only last Monday, the last day that we spent on our holiday, the sky was suddenly blue and immediately it was so warm, you could just walk around in a sweater. Fortunately that was the day where we also did the gondola trip on the grand canal and its side passages – on a gondola that happened to be named after me, which I appreciated very much, thank you. After that we went on to the tour with our guide Virgina, which was awesome (and not only because she looked great, spoke every language fluent and knew everything about anything). Every few steps she seemed to meet someone and told us about how, for the only 57 000 "real" Venetians, this place is pretty much like a village.

In the evening it was time to head off to Giudecca, so we left the lights of San Marque`s square behind. Getting out four stations later was like being thrown into another world, no people, no bright lights, but still water and old houses, lining up along the promenade. Wouldn`t it have been for the old man with the dog and the nice barkeeper with the black curly hair we never would have made it to our destination - but we did. And that is where I am sitting now, in a double bedroom with a lovely roommate and a mind full of new impressions. One week of the language course I am taking until Uni is starting next month has already passed, and I try to get as much as I can out of it. It is exhausting at times, but every sentence I understand, on the street or in the supermarket, in return is so rewarding. 

Stillness though, I have so far only found when I am alone on a boat, watching the waves. There was a german family next to me today on the Vaporetto back to the Island. "I wonder why Venice has never been defeated, it is build on poles after all", the father said. I could not help but turn around. "It has something to do with the strait that was almost impossible to enter back then, if you didn`t know your way around, since at some points the water is sometimes only about 12 centimeters deep", I said, got off at my stop and was dancing the whole way home.

While I certainly will not stop writing about Venice here, expect a bunch of other posts in the near future, too. I hope everyone is celebrating their weekend!

(Photos in this post have all been taken by the boyfriend and been edited by me.)

Sights of Venice, Part II

I will hopefully find words & time tomorrow. Until then, these will do.