The Truth About Blogging
Hi…I’m on a rant again because you learn so much when you do all your research and from all the reading I’ve done I’ve learnt much where blogging is concerned. Firstly, I have to go back to the beginning as to why I started blogging. I went into blogging for different reasons.
I wanted to share and sell my Art…….gafra.org
I wanted to be able to share my thoughts about different topics……triniartstudio.org
I wanted to share my Natural Hair journey through my experiences…….gafraihairu.com
Blogging was a great way to make another income stream
I wanted a voice and to journal my thoughts and share them.
But no one tells you how much work is involved and that you need to be able to write well…your posts must at least be able to keep the attention of your audience. All the different research I did via Pinterest, Google, etc all say that its your blog and just be you and speak as if you’re talking to a friend. That was fine but it’s not easy to write content that is well written so that you keep people’s attention.
Luckily I love English and I like writing, plus I didn’t care too sh….t if people felt my writing was good or not. I just want to have a voice to say and share what I wanted to. That is not the case if you want your blog to be a means to earn a living though. I remember speaking with my brother-in-law, that was at the start when I was now beginning my first and only blog ( now I have 3).
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I had started a blog…www.triniartstudio.net…but it was started to share my Artwork and to try to sell it online, but as I went along and time passed, I went through a transition and that name and the look of the site no longer reflected me, so I rebranded to GaFra…..www.gafra.org….because I had changed and as usual I did a lot of research because now I wanted to sell my art online, after having tried all variety of marketplaces (Fineartamerica, Big Cartel, Artpal, Etsy, ArtFinder and many more) but none of them worked. I sold nothing.
So getting back to the point of this post, when you start a blog, there are few things you need to consider:
Can you write well enough to hold a person’s attention
Is what you have to share interesting or not?
Do you really need to build a list of at least 100 topics so you never run out of things to talk about?
When you share your information is it properly written?
Do you know how to create proper cover pages for your blog post? And do you know where you can go to do that?
Do you even know how to build a blog? (Check squarespace.com or Wordpress)
Oh and there is even more....I also wanted to write a book. So aside from knowing if you have the writing skills to write the posts I wanted to go further. I wanted to write a book. Right now I’m putting together my husband’s poems to develop an ebook and publish it for him. That will be my test run.
I’ve always had a book on my bucket list and after reading all the different blogs about how you can do this, I am still tentative, because I always find out how much is involved in doing any of these things after the fact of trying to do it myself, in spite of all the research I do.
But what is great, is that through the research, like I mentioned above, you encounter all these sites that can help you and I also read from other book publishers, that you can publish it yourself via Amazon Kindle Publishing, but there are also courses that help you go through the process easily. I discovered one of these programs, of course I found it after the fact. It’s always after you struggle you discover all these helpful sites. I recently came upon this program:
Its called The Low Content Mastery training package. It's a course that teaches you how you can make money publishing journals, planners and other profitable low content books on Amazon KDP Print. The program includes:
Module #1: Step-by-Step Training Guides (10, plus free updates)
Module #2: Done-for-you book templates (all sizes)
Module #3: Premade Book Covers with Source Files
Module #4: Niche Profit Reports
Module #5: Over-my-shoulder video tutorials.
So don’t be like me and struggle, invest in learning the correct way to publish so that you don’t get lost or go off track like I did.
So what I didn’t do correct was
1. Write out the 100 topics so I had a flow for my blogs
2. Learn to develop covers for every blog posts (check Canva.com)
3. Understand the correct format for the posts and how to pull readers.
So I know I don’t want the same errors to occur when I start my book, which I want to start very soon. People do your homework and make sure you understand the best process to follow to get your book online and to even write good content whether its for your blog or your book. You want it to be purchased, do the right thing, be properly prepared so that it’s purchased.
Hi I’m GaFra
Welcome. Hope you enjoy my blog and don’t forget to get your freebie below
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Consistent Art. What is it?
Sharing some words of wisdom I read for other artists.
Quite inspiring..
Consistent Art. What is it? It’s something we all struggle with but, find out more, This short journal of my ideas and an easy way to understand it.
Hi Everyone...There is something I struggle with a lot, and its that of feeling not having ‘a style’, and by extension, I feel as if I create work that is a bit all over the place. This is often followed by some self-excuses and reasoning and me justifying it by saying...‘but I want to try everything!’.
Most of us want to be able to commit to a focus and make more consistent art at least some of the time, but it’s not always as easy as it might seem. I recently stumbled across an artist who...just from her first blog post got me excited....no not in that way....She basically expressed exactly what I've been feeling and going through and she is an artist that wants to help. That got me excited...SHE UNDERSTANDS!!
Her name is Tara Leaver and this is what she said........
"If I’ve learned one thing over the last decade, it’s that *consistency in your art does not, for most of us, happen overnight*.I’ve also noticed that the *frustration tends to come from feeling we ought or want to be more consistent* way before it makes sense for that to happen, ie. when we’re still in the early stages of learning to express ourselves through art. And the early stages can take years, friends. That’s completely normal {if a total bummer at times}.
There seems to be this standard way of thinking about it.
We notice that our paintings are coming out different from each other without any apparent common theme or thread.We also notice that we’re far too curious about all sorts of different subjects, styles, techniques and media to feel able to commit to just one.
**So we assume there’s something wrong with us,** that we’re not ‘real artists’. That we will never be able to make consistent work.
I don’t like the word amateur at all; it seems to come laced with judgement whenever it’s used. But I do think if we were able to accept early on that those other ‘further along’ words we may want to claim – professional, experienced, skilled, ‘good at what we do’ – may take longer to apply than we imagine or might like, {especially if we don’t yet have a regular artistic practice}, the whole process of finding our way might be a little less painful."
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Her words hit home to me. I've been feeling that way for the past 3-4 years of my painting life. But she has been painting for many years and I am still a fledgling, so I expect what I'm going through is all a part of the "growing up" process. Its good to know this though as there are times when I feel like I want to give up in frustration. Especially when I also want my art out there and no one is buying.
There are hundreds of artist here in Trinidad and as I always reiterate, only a few are established and make money, the rest do it as a hobby or because as Tara mentioned it's inside of us and we need to let it out.
There have been times when I wanted to cry because I feel as if there is something inside of me that wants to burst out but I haven't found the key to release it yet and it leaves me sad, frustrated and upset. Then I have to let the feeling ride, bury it and deal with it another day because life has to go on.
That's why Tara resonated with me so strongly. She empathies with what we artist go through. I especially needed to read these next words from her.....
"So my first tip, in light of the above, would be to really try to let it sink in that
a} everything takes a lot longer than you think it ought to, and
b} in the beginning, you likely will want to try a lot of different things, your work therefore will probably look inconsistent {although there will also be common threads so stay alert for those}, and this is all totally ok and normal. Frustrating as all hell, but normal. In fact, I consider it a significant part of fully becoming your artist self."
Thank you Tara. Your words helped me feel a lot better about myself and these crazy emotions that pop up at intervals especially when looking at the work of other artists. i would feel lost and like a fake. The one thing that did make me feel better before seeing her words was the fact that when I did my markets people expounded that my work was beautiful and very lovely, I mean.....that is all well and good but when you know inside you haven't reached that point where what you create soothes that crushing need for expression and release., then hearing that is short lived. It soothes you for a short period only.
Tara recommended a few exercises which I try as they were also mentioned by another artist I again stumbled upon...Nancy Hillis......what they both basically indicated is that we should:
1. Work in multiples. Start at least 3-5 pieces at the same time.
2. That prevents you from getting too detailed and tight as you paint.
3. Move from one to the other, it also gets you to paint a lot looser.
4. Choose a theme, something you're passionate about or excited about
5. Or challenge yourself by doing a specific number of pieces within a one week period.
So as I like to say let's see how that goes. I hope what I read and learned from Tara and Nancy will help you as well. Read more of my other ramblings, as...
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