Today is my Blogiversary

     Hello friends! As you probably figured out from the title, today is my blogiversary. I don't have a big exciting post planned like I've done in some of the previous years. I guess June 24th just sorta crept up on me. I thought it'd be fun to share some about my blogging journey on here though.

     Real quick, I just wanted to mention that I have a giveaway going on with a few girls on Instagram. I'm not sure how many of you use Instagram, but I link my account if you'd like to go and enter. : )

Here is what's included in the giveaway! It ends on June 29.

     I started blogging in 2013, here. I think I wrote on there for about a year before I moved blogs. I started a blog here but never got around to using it until June 24, 2016. That's when I started blogging regularly. I had heard about a lady who made a lot of money blogging, so I put all of my effort into it. I would write two posts a week, design a custom blog newsletter for each week, and spend lots of time working on my blog design, getting more readers, and making gadgets for the side. I also started a doll blog around that time. Needless to say, blogging became very stressful during that time. It was no longer a fun hobby, it was a dreaded chore. I was having a lot of problems with HTML codes, and losing my account on the newsletter site, and I wasn't even making money from it. I almost deleted my blog.

     When I stopped trying to make my blog perfect, it became enjoyable again. I changed my 

e-newsletters to the automatic Feedburner ones, so I wouldn't have to stress over that every week. Now that I don't have a blog schedule, I can blog whenever I have something to write. I don't have to force out words into posts every few days; I can wait until the words are ready to write themselves. And I don't fret over not having the perfect blog design. Now I blog because I love blogging.

     I don't mean to discourage you from working hard or trying to earn money, but writing just for money really doesn't work. Your writing has to have your heart in it. It's the same for writing books; yes, you can write for money, but likely your story will be dry if you do.When you have a story in your heart and just let the words flow onto the page, that's when captivating stories are born. 

     If you enjoy using HTML codes, designing blogs, and making gadgets, then blogging can definitely be a great way for you to earn money. You can make a lot of money using ads and affiliate links! I just don't think that's for me. Dealing with all of that isn't enjoyable to me, and I'd rather just write because I love to write. 

     I love to just fall into the pages and write whatever comes out, not whatever's on the schedule. That's one of the reason's why I love blogging on A Greater Purpose, because I can write whatever I want to write on there. Since it's a fictional blog, I can go as far as my imagination takes me. Sometimes I'm back in India, recounting memories from my childhood, and watching the elephants go by. Sometimes I'm in Colorado, singing with a whole bunch of little girls in my attic bedroom. And maybe someday, I'll be somewhere else, like sailing the Pacific ocean in a pirate ship, or walking the beautiful red roads of Uganda. Writing lets my mind explore the world. That's why I blog, because I love to write.

Why do you write?