Erratic Engineeress turned one today!

18th of February 2019 was the date when I published my first blog post ever, a short travel story about the reindeer feeding encounter in Kiruna. Now it’s been a year and I’m looking back at the start of my blogging journey in significantly different surroundings: in Sweden it was still rather dark and there was about a metre of snow outside, while February in Slovenia is almost springtime. Since it’s been quite the metaphorical road to walk, I figured I should share a couple of things I’ve learned in 1 year of blogging:

• Turns out that even though you can start a free blog in 2 minutes, having an actual blog which looks close to the way you want it to look and has all the right functionalities takes quite a bit of time, isn’t free and is a never-ending project. Who knew web developers have jobs for a reason? 🙂
• On a related note, I now know quite a bit about CSS, web design, social media, SEO optimisation and compressing photos, which I would never have learned otherwise.
• You can’t force a good blog post, but sometimes you have to, because otherwise I wouldn’t write anything at all.
• Also, it’s impossible for me to write a short sentence or a blog post!
• I’m learning tons of new information every time I write a post, because I want to be sure I’m fact checking everything as much as possible, so this blogging thing is better for my brain than a daily crossword puzzle.
• Similarly, blogging helps me to revisit and organise my memories and really process my thoughts and experiences, so bonus mental health points too.

• A good spell checker saves lives!
• Finding your writing voice is actually surprisingly easy when you stop being cautious and worrying whether people will like it or not and just write what’s really on your mind.
• When you stop caring the likes start coming in.
• Turns out social media is relatively easy to grow if you follow all the popular marketing tips, but takes more consistency and dedication than I’ll ever be willing to put into it.
• Also, the secret to taking better travel photographs of places and yourself is to actually take more than a second per a photo – I find about 5 usually does the trick.
• Although I would one day like to have Erratic engineeress as a side hustle and potentially earn money with it, intentionally not having that as the main objective has been surprisingly liberating and allowed me to focus on the quality of my posts, rather than the quantity.
• Last but not least, blogging is a long-term game. It’s slow to pick up, because blogs are a relatively obsolete type of media, so you really need to stick with it. However, there are people who still read out there and Erratic engineeress is slowly growing. It currently already has 1/6 of last year’s total visitor count in the middle of February, so I’m excited to see what happens next.

Finally, like with most things, it takes a village, so huge thanks also to Ana for designing my logo, to Manca for cover photo editing and design tips, to Samo for actually reading all my blog posts, to Eva for being my top fan and teaching me about photography, to Matic for putting up with my constant brainstorming and questions about new blog ideas, and to all my other friends and family (you know who you are!) who regularly support me on social media and offer constructive feedback.

P.S.: Some of the people I just thanked also have their own businesses/creative projects that I linked on their names, so go check them out!