How Writing for Myself has Helped Me Grow

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It's taken me several years to get to the point of writing I'm at right now. I'm not saying I'm a huge success (I'm not), but I have come a long way since 2012. The year I had to start over.

I've written a lot about the years I had to walk away from writing to revamp my personal life. I won't go into detail in this post, but it took me a long time to get over some personal issues. I owe what I'm doing now to 2 different places; In The Pantheon and Medium.com. If it wasn't for these 2 sites, I'd still be "trying" to find my voice once again.

At In The Pantheon, I wrote in the voice of the ancient goddess, Demeter. I found a way to let "her" voice control the story and I had a blast. Though I wasn't able to stay with this site, I wish the entire Pantheon all the success in the world. I wouldn't be writing this post if it wasn't for them.

At Medium.com, I got to write as a person. I could just be me, in all my opinionated states. I've never had the success on that site that some claim to have, but I'm okay with that. I wrote articles, opinion pieces, fiction, and a ton of poetry. I haven't shared my poetry in years and it felt good to have someone tell me that they liked my style. 

Now, I'm writing on my own sites. I'm still writing on Medium, but I'm spending a lot more time updating this and a couple of other blogs I've had for many years. Yes, I have ads on my site, but it's not to try and become rich. It's so that maybe at some point, I can pay off a few credit cards. 

By writing on my own blogs, I've found a whole new way to express myself. For years, I had it in my head that everything I wrote needed to sound as though written by a robot. I had it in my head that if my posts didn't sound like all the "big blogs", I wouldn't be successful. I had to change the way I viewed success. I stopped trying to be perfect and began writing as if talking to a room full of friends. My words began to flow and I was finding more ideas to write about.

Besides this site, I also run the blogs Para-Mythic and Collected Keepsakes. Each of these sites is a world away from the others, but that's what makes it interesting. Para-Mythic is about ancient histories, mysteries, and mythologies. This is a passion of mine. I've always loved ancient history and am always trying to learn more. The best part for me is in trying to figure out some of the mysteries that still perplex the experts today.

Collected Keepsakes is a place about being a collector. I collect a lot of things, and I love all those shows about finding collectibles in the most unlikely places. I get a kick out of it. The thing is that I almost let go of this site. I was having a heck of a time trying to come up with topics that would make Google's search list and I guess it freaked me out just enough that I couldn't write at all. Then, I began writing about what I enjoy about collecting and gave up on Google. It was just what I needed to do. 

My ultimate goal is to get back to making money with my writing, but for now, I'm just going to work on being a writer I'd like to read. I'm having fun writing again and I think that's worth more at this time. What about you? What are you doing to advance your writing? Let me know. And if you have a site, send me the link. I'd love to check it out.

Happy Writing!!!

© Christine Graves 2020