Five Lessons Learned from a Year of Blogging

I have written a blog post every day for the past 52 weeks. A whole year! When I set out on the goal to blog every week for a year I was pretty sure I would give up. Lol. A year seemed like a long time and I had no track record of sticking to a writing schedule. But here I am!

When I started my quest to blog once a week in June of 2024, I’d recently lost my job and had plenty of time to write. As the year went by and I found employment (sometimes too much employment), my writing time and attention lessened. Somehow I still managed to write, or schedule a post for every week of the year.

I guess the motivation and stamina were just there, which I am extremely proud of and excited about. But I also did some things that helped me succeed and I will share those lessons with you at the end of this blog. It wasn’t all divine timing and will power, there were things I did to make writing each week possible and allow it to flow.

As this year wraps up, I’m realizing the quantity of writing I did this year. I see now that could write a whole book in a year, working at it for 2 hours a week and writing around 1300 words each time, which is my average blog output weekly. That is 2 pages of single-spaced, 12 point font, Times New Roman script. If you multiple 1,300 works a week by 52 weeks a year you get 67,600 words a year, which is within the window of your average novel.

Amazing right?

It kind of makes me want to set a goal to write a book next year! Hmmm, something to think about. But don’t think about it too much Deird! That’s how I get nothing done. I’m a classic overthinker, planning out a project and all its angles and then never getting started. (I wrote a blog post about how to start things and never finish them if you’re interested.)

Yep, it takes me about 2 hours to write a post and I wrote one a week. Sometimes it happened a lot faster and sometimes a post would take days.

I needed the pressure of a schedule to get any writing done. Two hours a week working on my blog is really not that much. I would have loved to work on it more. But I couldn’t actually get myself to write much of anything at all without the deadline of my Wednesday posting schedule. To be honest, I generally put the blog post off until Wednesday morning and then scratched it out between 7-9am before I needed to go to work.

And that worked fine for me. I actually enjoyed it. When I had limited time and someone expecting me to post, I would come up with an idea and blast out the two pages and it was even fun! I don’t like the idea of waiting till the last minute because it feels like procrastination and that has negative connotations to me, but I think I just need to get over the idea that it’s procrastinating. If I set aside from 7-9am on Wednesdays to write and I show up and do it, who cares if that is “last minute”?

You certainly don’t care, do you?!

If a writing schedule works for you, you’re getting the words on the page, then it’s a good schedule. Hell, if you’re also actually enjoying yourself then it’s a very good system!

I was little bit nervous when I started posting on Substack that there would be mean people there, ready to pick my writing apart. It feels vulnerable to share openly on the internet, to put your ideas and life out there for anyone to read. But of course, this didn’t happen. Like everything I do with The Willow Path, I didn’t attract attention and my audience remains small.

This works for me! The exercise of writing is mostly a personal journey for me, to express myself and to create. If that connects with you, I love that! I do want my writing here to be useful and offer you up some knowledge about tarot and about living a mindful life. I’m not setting out to be a teacher or a guru though, so if 3 people read this, that’s beautiful and that’s enough.

The time I tried to combine writing with going to the pond. It turned out to be too distracting and buggy so it was a one time thing.

The question now becomes will I keep blogging each week? My inclination is to stop, to give myself those hours back, to take one more pressure out of my life. I reached my goal to blog for a year, I did that thing, and now I can ease up and relax. Less activities, less pressure in my life, that’s something I’m always aiming to achieve. So the writing should go…

I’m not so sure. Yes, there is a bit of pressure, but it’s not that much. And didn’t I just say that these two hours were kind of fun? I’ve got endless blog post ideas. I mean, I could write 10 different blog posts about each tarot card, I’m always finding new inspiration within the cards. And it’s not like my urge to write is just going to evaporate. It would still be there and have zero structure.

And I don’t really see myself doing something else during these two hours that I’ve really been missing out on. Usually I do morning pages, meditate, and draw a tarot card during that time, maybe take a shower if I’m lucky. The rest is just kind of frittered away on nothing much. I do have a busy summer of trips and jobs planned, so how about I compromise? I will write a blog post when I’m home on Wednesday mornings, and not worry about it when I’m away.

Aren’t you glad I’m deciding all this in real time, typing it out for you? What’s the real difference between these blog posts and morning pages at a time like this!?

In summation, let me tell you my five lessons learned from blogging every week for a year:

1. Any writing schedule you will stick to is a good writing schedule.

2. Writing just 1300 works a week can add up to a whole book in a year.

3. The more you write, the more ideas you will have. There’s no end to inspiration.

4. It’s safe to express yourself and be creative online.

5. Accountability can help get a goal accomplished.

I’m so thankful to everyone who read any of my writing this year, it was knowing that you were out there “waiting for my posts” that kept me honest with my schedule. Let me know if there are types of posts that you like or things you’d like me to write about. I’m taking requests!

In the meantime, have a great day, and I’ll see you next week!