My Blogging Journey

It was December 31st, 2010  and I was sitting in the Computer Lab at SZABIST 90 working on a group project with my group mates sitting on either side of me. They were working on their parts and I sat there waiting for them to finish for compilation to begin.

Opening my mailbox, I started reading an old story I had written. Excellence At  Work. This is a story I wrote in grade 10 (2015) back in school. Though we were not to write that long a story, I ended up writing (handwritten, mind you) that length and bound it and gave it a book like structure. Later on, I typed it and emailed it to myself so that I can read it later.

Back to 2010 as I sat there reading my story. I felt the urge to share my words with the world. I wanted people to read the story and voila! I looked up various blogging platforms and chose WordPress (also made a Blogger blog later which I abandoned soon after). At the time, my blog had no name per se. It was just my name and I hurriedly used Google and Power Point to made a Featured Image for my blog post and promptly published the story.

Sadly the story ever got only 2 comment. Check it out, maybe?

The purpose of the blog was to share my words and my work with everyone at large;

For 2011 it included;

• Stories I wrote
• Poems I wrote
• Research articles on stuff I was  reading about

In 2012, I added;

• Daily musings
• Opinions (book related and otherwise)
• Articles for Blogging campaigns I participated in
• A Harry Potter fanfiction
• Articles for my BBA project
• TV series reviews

In 2013, I added;

• Quill Talks, where I share quotes
• Book Reviews

In 2014, I gave my blog a name “Lair of a Wordsmith” and published that short story on smashwords. The story that started it all.

In 2015, while no new type of content was being added and I was writing stories, the focus had shifted to writing more and more book reviews. I guess I was reading too much!

In 2016, I started;

• A new blog which was only for book related stuff and called it “Hina Loves To Read” because I thought amidst all the book reviews, my own work was not being given the spotlight it deserved and I was also being lazy in not writing any new story or poem because the posts were rolling in
• A segment called Read Out Loud wherein I shared the audios of me reading my stories because I wanted to dabble in audiobooks and was not a 100% willing to shift to them for my own reading

In 2017, I started Zoe Chronicles here on the blog. These are short stories revolving around one main character and often inspired by true events.

In 2018, I wrote a review for a TV series and the people on Twitter completely lost it. This is not something new that I started doing but it was one of the highlights of the year and  major exposure for the blog.

It has been business as usual since then and I need to bring in something new to spice things up .

Learning in the Journey

That was the story of how but there is more.

In this decade, I learnt a lot as a blogger, a writer, a reader and as an individual.

• I was the habit of writing a story and then publishing it as soon as I was done typing it. With the passage of time, I learn that despite my abhorrence towards grammatical errors, I was making some which I was able to identify when reading the stories later.
• Typos had been a bane of my existence because I was usually multitasking in the beginning and not paying complete attention and making my fingers decide what the right key was for any letter. I learn that I am, after all, human and prone to making mistakes and I may make errors even with checking a thousand times and that it was OK.
• I don’t have to be a part of every blogging campaign out there because though money matters, principles matter more.
• When I do not like a book, I do not have to continue with it just for the sake of having finished a book; life is too short as is.
• When I do not like a book or something about a book, I do not have to necessarily have to mince my words but I must remaining respectful, it is OK to say what was wrong with what I read
• My reviews are my opinions and not the final verdict on anything. Someone else may love the book I hated and vice versa and that is fine.
• Life goes on; never let anything or anyone make you stop from standing when you have fallen.

Adios! Catch you soon with something more.