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Breakout Blogger

          
          A couple years ago blogging was a foreign
concept to me. I had read the occasional travel blog by a friend, but the idea
of an ongoing blog seemed rather daunting. I also didn’t have much faith in
myself as a writer or my ideas. But I was lucky, because someone did.
          I met the talented Rebecca Emrich at a
mutual workplace and our personalities instantly hit it off. We cared about the
same things, and were passionate about reaching out to people and helping them
along their own paths. When Rebecca first asked me to write for her blog I
initially resisted because I wasn’t sure I was skilled enough to offer
something worth reading. Sure I had opinions (some of them quite strong) and I
loved to research and write about interesting topics, but who would want to
read these if I wrote them down?

I was also intimidated by the fact the blog
had already been an established go-to for many writers before I started. My
thought was that it would be like trying to break into a clique in highschool.
I quickly discovered this was not the case.
          From my first post, Rebecca and the readers
embraced me as a member of the Living a Life of Writing community. I instantly
felt inspired to challenge myself and grow as a writer. A year and a half later
I look forward to writing on the blog each week and feel like I am making
valuable contributions. Feedback from readers gives ideas for new topics and
changes that can be made to increase the value of the blog for our audience.
From week to week we can show dynamic changes and develop ideas in a way that a
published book just can’t do as effectively.
         Not even a year into working on the blog I
decided I wanted to start my own blog that I’ve mentioned a few times on here
titled The VoiceNotes. This website and blog was an opportunity to tap into my
passion for the voice and explaining the implications of the anatomy and
physiology on healthy voice use. Without this blog and the community of support
I have received, I would have never had the confidence to pursue this dream.

         I suppose the take-away message of this
short post is that blogging may seem intimidating, but because it is dynamic in
a way that writing a book or article is not, it allows your readers to really
observe growth in who you are as a writer. In essence you are providing daily
or weekly updates on your perspective and thus you present as more relatable to
your readers. That’s not to say books and other print forms alienate you from
your readers, but we have spoken a lot about the importance of relatability on
your success as a writer and blogging is a very effective forum for this.