Blog Talks and Finding a Voice

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I went to a fun video blog talk [I'm there in the lower left corner! ] last night hosted by My Girl Thursday with some other lady bloggers--it was fun but odd to video chat with people who are strangers in the strictest sense, although some of them I knew a bit about from reading their blogs. (It's also been awhile since I've video chatted--I only ever talked to the boy really on Skype when we still lived in different cities)  There were definitely some interesting questions that were posed though, and it was definitely nice to connect with some other bloggers to hear their thoughts on what worked best for them.

The question I asked, which seems sort of a line I'm walking lately is the question of how much to share on a blog about your personal life when your blog is largely supposed to be representative of your business, as well as using your own self to basically sell your brand as well as to connect with readers. The advice given was basically to write as if you were writing to a friend (which of course you are) and to keep a handle on how much you share, but over-share if needed, and where it feels relevant. This was basically what my thoughts were on the whole thing as well, and I guess I just need a bit more time to put it into practice.

All in all a helpful chat, given thoughts that have been going through my mind of late regarding blog challenges and keeping motivated,  as well as trying to find my niche of what weekly features work for others, and which will work for me in my blog in the long run.

Other Blog related things I'm excited about

Upcoming Toronto Blogger meetups, organized through My Life as a Cupcake! They've got a Facebook group up and running, and I'm looking forward to the meet up happening! I think meeting up in person with some other bloggers will be a great experience, and hopefully a little less awkward than the video chatting:)

I'm also excited that I won a spot through a Twitter giveaway in Ashley from After Nine to Five's upcoming e-course, Blog 101! I think I definitely fall into the "who should take this course" category:

Who should take this course:

• Someone who understands how to blog, but wants to grow it by putting forth effort
• Someone who wants to make better use of their time blogging, commenting, etc.
• Someone who wants to make their blog work for them and their style/personality
• Someone who wants to understand how to show off their personality through their blog
• Someone who doesn’t only focus on the numbers aspect of blogging
• Someone that likes being in a class with a lot of like-minded people

I'm glad that there's a 6 month window for this course though, since I'm struggling a lot with getting schoolwork done in the heat of the summer. However, I think this is just largely because I'd rather be doing things that are closer to my heart, like blogging or going out for walks with the dog and friends rather than sitting around staring at the computer, and I'm not incredibly gripped by the course I'm taking currently either. Even bribing myself with future rewards of a hangout at a friend's place with beer drinking and swimming (in some safe order) hasn't done the trick to get me motivated yet. I know I always figure it all out in the end, but I really need to work on my procrastinating ways and learn how to self-motivate a bit better. Clearly I will need to think on this a bit more in a future post: :)

♥ Craftzilla