Some Things About Blogging

I've seen several posts lately about the dos and don'ts of blogging. It's interesting, I guess. See, I read it a little differently--we're all here for different reasons and to achieve different goals. I cannot presume to tell you what to do to write a good blog.

I can tell you what I do and why.

1) I'm very personal and honest about what I'm going through with horses.
I started blogging years ago. I'd just gotten my first horse. I was an adult ammy student with a tight budget and almost no local horse friends. I figured there had to be other people like me, so I googled "horse blog" and started reading. And writing. And here I am.

For the record: this is a completely fabulous idea. I have met so many amazing people and forged some incredible friendships and the impact it has had on my actual life is stunning. Ex: met Roxie's mom through the blog. She sourced ZB for me. WUT. ZB IS BECAUSE OF BLOGGING. (Oh and I wanted a ZB because Karen and Roxie's mom let me ride their horses. And we all knew each other because of blogging.)

and sass

[Talking about the ways online bloggers became amazing real life friends would 1) take forever and 2) be extremely personal so I'll probably leave off on that right now, but just know there are incredible people all around us.]

Because my goal is to connect with other horse people, my style is a little different. I don't give a flying f*** if I'm an influencer. I find brand ambassadors in poor taste. I'm not worried about SEO and metrics and building a brand. I'm here for the people, not the money.

I'm not here to shit on the people who are--more power to them. Just not my jam.

2) I LOVE PICTURES. 
Given the prevalence of readily available media anymore, a picture is probably worth like 53 words, but they still matter. I hate to throw walls of text at people. I have a cute horse and a smart phone and boom. Y'all get more ZB pictures than you know what to do with.

recently i stole a camera

3) I make it easy to comment. 
Real talk: I love comments. Partly because it tells me I'm actually hitting my goal of connecting with other humans, partly because I'm vain.

Here's the thing though: I can only remember like one thing at a time. If I'm reading a post and someone says something I want to comment on, I write that comment in my head, but then the topic changes and I forget the comment because I'm reading and then it changes again and I forget I had a comment, and then I'm on something else entirely and by the time I get to the comments, I don't remember what I was thinking anyways.

Maybe y'all are hella better about that than me. Much respect if so. I try to keep things simple and stick to one topic. Plus I allow anonymous comments. And I'm sorry wordpress people but if you require a wordpress account to post a comment, I can't do it.

my ambition level every day

4) I keep things about my one horse. 
I only have the attention span for one horse, so that's pretty easy. If you want lifestyle advice and breezy socialite thrills, you're probably not going to find that here. I don't art. I barely craft. My skincare routine is take a shower. I blog for horses, so I write about horses and if you don't like horses, this is a very odd place for you to be.

I try to write a blog that I like to read. I'm not much for detailed training wrap ups (except when I am), but I know some people LOVE those and read every detail.

I used to be a really good blogger--I had a solid mix of personal and topical posts and I posted every day and did all the things. Now I'm kind of an average blogger who's doing well if I get two posts out a week. The way I do things isn't the one true only or right way to do them.

It works for me. What works for you?