Light the cake candles and bring out the bunting - this blog just hit double figures.
It was 10 years ago today - 24 August 2010 - that I published my first ever post. That was the summer between my first and second years at university, meaning this adventure must have started in my old childhood bedroom in Kent, though my earliest blogging memories are in my cramped second year bedroom in York.
Since then, this blog has been written in four of my bedrooms in various houses, scrawled on the back of receipt paper during retail work, scribbled in notebooks on the train, and latterly, drafted out in the notes app on my phone.
I started blogging as a career move. Having briefly flirted with the idea of forensic linguistics, then realising there was way too much science involved for my delicate sensibilities, my ambitions switched back to my first love - writing. Journalism seemed the best way to ensure I was writing for a living, so I set about obsessively researching how to become a journalist.
'Start a blog to showcase your writing' was one of the top tips coming up again and again, so willing to do anything that might give me the edge, I eagerly complied. Back then, it was a straight up choice between using Blogger or using Wordpress to launch your blog, and though I can't remember the exact thought process that led me to Blogger, my little space on the internet was born (extra points to any of you who have been here long enough to remember what the original name was - Scribbling Lau as a blog name didn't emerge until a few years later, though it's always been my Twitter handle).
When I started this blog, blogging was completely different to what it is today. It certainly wasn't an 'industry'. Twitter barely existed, Instagram certainly didn't, and follower numbers meant nothing. Bloggers didn't get freebies, and you could forget about making a living from it through sponsored posts and affiliate links. And SEO was non-existent to all but the most tech-focused. It was purely a hobby.
It took me a while to even tell anyone I knew that I had a blog, though it was proudly plastered all over my CV. I was embarrassed to admit I was a blogger, partly due to writer's angst, and the crippling fear of having anyone read my work (if you know, you know), but also because back then, blogging was considered to be a seriously geeky pastime.
That's almost come full circle now - as I wrote a couple of years ago, I'm still often reluctant to admit I have a blog, but these days, it's for different reasons. The blogging, or (ugh) influencer industry is viewed somewhat negatively by those outside it, and often by those within it, and is something I try to separate myself from.
Over time, the purpose of this blog has changed. The early years were me finding my feet, and experimenting with different types of post to find out what I liked writing - something which probably subconsciously helped me narrow down my career ambitions.
I used to be embarrassed when I look back at old posts. Some of them were written in overly fancy language, because that's what I thought good writing was. Others have terrible images, or don't even have photos at all, something that seems unfathomable to a blogger in 2020. I've considered deleting these historic, sub-standard posts on several occasions, but I've come to enjoy looking back at them, as they show how far I've come, not only in improving my writing and photography skills, but also in narrowing down my interests and passions and - if you'll allow me to indulge in a little Eat Pray Love style waffle - finding out who I am.
At time of writing this post, I've had a full-time journalism job for six and half years, and I'm hoping it'll be there for me to go back to after furlough. So with my original purpose achieved, why am I still blogging? I really love it. Blogging fired up a passion in me to get out and explore new places, be it the latest pop-up shop in London, or a public garden near my house that has eluded me my whole life. That passion is something that now goes beyond blogging and has become a part of me - I love visiting new places, though it's something that's been put on hold this year.
As I said, I've always been writing this blog for me, not for the page views or follower numbers. That said, I do find it really interesting to see which posts have been most popular. I've crunched the numbers, and my most popular blog post ever is... Tiger cubs at London Zoo. Knocked together and published in just a few minutes in back in 2014, I suspect that SEO has played a large part in its popularity, despite the fact that I didn't even know what SEO was back then.
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