In early July 2016, when I hit “publish” on my first ever blog post, I never thought that I’d still be blogging five years later. I also had no way of knowing how much I would enjoy the writing process. I initially created the blog as a way to document my week-long pilgrimage on the Camino Frances. Since those early days of starting the blog, writing has not only given me a creative outlet but also opened up new career opportunities. Writing a post often takes days. I love the process of coming up with an idea, thinking about it, jotting some thoughts, and finally transforming these into a post. The whole process brings me great joy.
Research, research
Let’s start at the beginning. Before writing the first word, I spent months learning about blogging. It was a lengthy process of learning and researching how to start a blog, which platform to use for the blog, selecting a URL, picking a web hosting service, and learning blogging best practices. I even signed up for a Continuing Education course at university. The course, Writing for the Web, gave me a lot of useful tools that I still use. All this hard work had some happily unexpected consequences.
New skills, new job, new confidence
Little did I know that these new skills would come in handy a year later when I applied for and got my dream job in marketing! This job gave me a much-needed confidence boost after 2 hellish years at work. Having learned how to create and manage a website came in handy as I spent countless hours working on the website at work.
These new skills also made me eager to learn more and I have taken other courses to improve my digital marketing skills. I’m surprised at how much I enjoy the nerdier aspects of websites, especially the metrics and analytics reports.
Top 3 posts
I thought that it would be fun to celebrate the five-year anniversary of Sonia’s Hungry Heart, by listing the top 3 posts/pages that have garnered thousands of views since publication. Five years in, I’m still humbled at the number of website visits. Ironically, none of the top 3 posts are about the Camino. The “Letter to…” type of post is obviously very popular. One of these days, it’ll be time to write a letter to my 50-year-old self. Yikes!
- Letter to my 40 year old self
- Joy in clutter? Yes, it’s possible
- Series: letter to my pre-pandemic self
To read the Camino posts, click here.
Photo credit: my incredibly talented friend Steff ❤
