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Written by Tori Harrison
I first started blogging during my penultimate year of High School, which for me was around 10 years ago now. A girl at my school had started a blog and decided to share her new passion with friends and acquaintances to get feedback on how to make her blog better. Purely out of curiosity, I started following her blog’s Twitter account and stumbled across numerous other blogs all within the beauty niche.
Starting To Blog
I instantly fell in love with the writing, the photography and the process of creating a blog post from start to finish. After reading copious amounts of other blogs and posts on starting my own blog I knew blogging was something I fancied trying out. I also knew I needed an outlet for the stress that was AS levels and so my first ever blog was born.
As time passed by, I found myself becoming disinterested in my own writing. I remember drafting posts thinking “Can everyone tell I just no longer care about this topic and I’m not passionate about it”. I didn’t want to write about beauty or make-up reviews as I just could not get excited about my posts.
Travel Blogging
Due to my lack of enthusiasm, I stopped wanting to blog and took a little break. During my break, I started university and began going out, exploring Liverpool and even started doing little bits of travelling. I enjoyed those things and found myself looking at travel bloggers on Instagram and loving their content.
I decided to transform my blog niche from beauty to food and travel. This combined the two things I adored, going on holiday and eating food. These topics I could write about for hours on end and I actually liked the posts I was producing and became proud of my content. At this time, I also re-branded my blog as Toris Edit and gave my blog a huge facelift.
A few months later and university started getting very stressful, my niche was not quite working for me anymore as I did not have time to go out to eat or go on minibreaks / holidays. My content essentially dried up and became stale.
Lifestyle Blogging
As a burnt out university student, I started to scour the internet looking for law students in the same position as me. Whilst I found an insane amount of Instagram accounts and Twitter accounts, the lack of written blogs shocked me. I felt I could bridge a gap in the market and hopefully help some other poor university students who were struggling just like me.
This then marked the ‘lifestyle’ era of my blog. Lifestyle encompassed a crazy amount of topics and meant I was not boxed in and did not need to niche down. At this time, I felt my brand was me and people read my blog for my stories so lifestyle seemed perfect. I still wanted to continue blogging about food and travel, when those activities happened, and this way I could incorporate all of the topics I wanted to write about without feeling tied to one certain area.
Becoming The Oh So T Blog
Fast forward a year or so, I’d graduated from university and was a Trainee Solicitor buying her first house in Manchester. I was wanting to blog about Manchester life and decided my blog’s design no longer suited me. I re-branded to ‘Oh So T’ and she has stuck around ever since. A lifestyle niche still suited me as I could continue to write about the things I love and also include posts about renovating my first home as well as providing tips on being a first time buyer.
I then got hit with an interesting breakup, tripped and fell head first into a wonderful new relationship and a few months in I ended up pregnant with our first child! Blogging needed to take a backseat, understandably, whilst I adjusted to this change and so I took a small break.
I was struck a month ago by a sudden desire to blog and I’ve started writing again! Whilst I have not posted anything new to my blog, just yet, I have a lot of post ideas, posts in drafts and I can see a vision and direction for my blog, which is very exciting for me!
A blog is always a reflection of its author and it will grow and evolve as its author does. During the 10 year time period I have been blogging for, I have grown and evolved as a person and with that evolution, my writing style and the direction I want my blog to go in has changed. This is all a natural process in your blogging journey and something I love about writing on the internet.
Why I Continue Blogging And What Motivates Me
There were so many occasions when I could have given up my blog, especially when I fell out of love with my it as it was no longer a reflection of me. However, I love writing, I love posting on Instagram and I love sharing my experiences with people to try and help them. I have received many messages over the years of people reaching out to thank me for being candid about mental health or about my relationship issues as those posts helped them and they were able to take something positive from my bad experience.
If my blog can help just one person overcome a bad experience, inspire one person to continue with their university degree even when times are hard or even just randomly give someone a great recommendation for an independent restaurant in Manchester then it makes it all worthwhile and motivates me to continue blogging.
I’ve also met some incredible people through blogging. The blogging community on Twitter and Instagram are so supportive, you get to meet people through blog events and can form friendships for life!
You Could Be A Blogger Too
If you’ve recently been reading blogs and thinking ‘I could do that and I fancy giving blogging a go’ I one hundred percent recommend that you create a blog and start writing today. Chances are you will end up with a fantastic page full of your own writing and there really is no limit as to what you can blog about. The possibilities are endless!
I hope this post has shown you that you really can start writing about any topic you are interested in and then change niche at any point! If you have been unsure about starting a blog as you are worried your topic may be too niche or not niche enough, I hope my blogging history has shown you that you can change niche at any point and your blog can evolve as both you and your writing do! I really hope you’ve been inspired to start your writing journey and if you have please feel free to drop me a message on my socials as I would love to hear from you!
More from Tori:
Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Blog
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