Hey everyone! It’s been another year since I started my blog, and it’s been a fun time so far!
If you’ve been reading for a while, or just looked back through my posts, you’ve probably noticed a decreased post volume over the last few months.
That’s intentional, at least partly.
See, when I started, I wanted to get as much content as I could out as quickly as possible. I had tons of ideas and a lot of plans, and I wanted the blog to have a good foundation of content.
The latter part of that is still true, of course. I want it to be obvious that I’m on here writing and sharing advice and ideas.
But I’ve been struggling more and more to find ideas, and I think that my weekly posts were bound to eventually slip as a result.
Writing that much for over a year is a lot more work than I realized at the outset. I maintained it for a long time, and all the travel I did made it even easier to maintain.
I’m headed to Romania again in a few weeks, and hoping to head somewhere else after that. It’ll certainly give me some new ideas, but for a while I didn’t have much. Burnout didn’t help.
Why I’m Slowing Down
I think the slowdown in post frequency was unavoidable after a certain point, and completely necessary for the continued survival of the blog. I’d much rather put out a higher quality post less frequently than a lower quality post more frequently. Not only would I have more time to make worthwhile ideas, but I would have more time to write them, too.
Having that time gave me a bit of a mental break as well. Coupled with my time spent practicing creative writing, I was putting 1500-2000 words on a page every single day. It was a lot, and more mentally taxing than I realized. I still try to do that when I can, and I’m looking to find the right balance between making progress and avoiding burnout.
I also got a short-term job a couple months ago to help fund more travels and will likely keep coming back to it between trips. But that’s taken up a lot of time and made it harder to focus on the blog or my other writing.
In the last week or two, I’ve begun to come up with a lot more ideas. This is likely due in no small part to the fact that I’m actually going out adventuring again. I’m camping, hiking, and trying new things in ways I couldn’t during the winter. The frequency of posts will certainly go up for a while in the next couple months! I’m hoping to at least post more than once a month for a while.
How My Blog Has Changed
You might not have noticed it, but there have been a few subtle changes to my blog. For one, I got a logo! I’m incredibly happy with how it came out, and I’m hoping to create some more theming to match it!
The other big thing is that I’ve begun paying more attention to old posts. I try to be consistent about going through and editing them, and that’s always been the case. But I’ve also hidden a few old ones that I just didn’t like. One byproduct of weekly posting is that they aren’t always a consistent quality, and some of them just weren’t up to scratch.
One thing I shied away from is having a post about how to learn language quickly. I’ve tried to do something along those lines a few times, but they just never felt right. Learning a language is a lifelong endeavor and there will always be something new. It’s not a process that can easily be rushed.
I even question some of my posts about the grammar of a language or the language distribution in a country. It’s hard to give the full picture of a place with only statistics in a book or online. And when I haven’t visited a place, that’s all I can really rely on. But it’s hard to write posts about such things consistently when I’m not traveling.
In Romania, for example, I can easily say that I never had trouble getting around using English. I can also list the exact places that I’ve been to make it clear where my experience lies. But when I write about Argentina, a country I have yet to visit, I just can’t provide that level of nuance.
How Things Will Change
This is actually a spot where I might need a bit of help.
I’m always looking for ways to improve my blog, be they formatting, content, or anything else involved in the process.
I certainly want to post a bit more often, and I can easily make that happen. (in fact, as I’m writing this, I just finished writing a big post about Silverwood Theme Park that’ll be up soon!)
I’d also like to find a way to make some money from this blog. Don’t worry, I won’t be filling it with advertisements or anything like that. But I’ve spent several hundred dollars here without much in return. The more I can support myself on the move, the easier it’ll be to maintain and improve this blog! I’d love to sell an ebook, guide, or product of some kind to help support what I’m doing here.
The biggest issue is that I don’t have a ton of ideas for how to do that. Right now, I’m thinking about writing some easy language guides/ cheat sheets that you can take with you on your travels.
(While writing this, I decided to set up a Ko-fi. Any future products I decide to sell will be available there, and you’ll be able to send me a donation/ tip at any time!)
But if you, my dear readers, have any ideas, I’d love to hear them!
Conclusion
I’m having a great time with this blog, even if I have slowed down quite a bit recently. Please, if you have any questions, ideas, comments, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to let me know! I promise I won’t bite, and feedback is incredibly useful for me to make this blog a place for everyone to visit!
I would also love to hear from anyone who visits this blog consistently. A few of you are hiding out there, and I would love to meet you!
That’s all for now, and thanks for reading, as always!
