I’ve been writing this blog for five months and you may wonder:

1. Why I write a blog?

2. Is blogging a waste of time?

3. How do I find time for blogging?

4. How do I get readers?

5. How is my novel coming along?

6. How do I stay motivated?

I even wonder these things myself from time to time. Here are the answers and a report on my progress so far.

1. Why do I write a blog?

My two main goals are:

• to inspire people to be more daring and try to achieve their life goals;
• to get a book published.

My main goal with this blog is to write inspiring and interesting content that builds a decent readership. Then, when my manuscript is ready, I can tell literary agents about my loyal readers.

I read somewhere that agents and publishers will only get interested in your blog if you have at least 1000 visitors each day, so that’s the number I picked. I think it’s ambitious.

Note that the goal of the blog is not to make money, nor to make a book out of the blog contents, but to show agents and publishers that I write well and that people like to read what I write. I know, it’s all a bit pie in the sky, but then this is a blog for people with a dream, and by one.

2. Am I wasting my time?

As per my previous articles on co-motivation ^[1] and goal setting ^[2], here’s a progress report.

Remember the goal is to get 1000 visitors per day, or about 30,000 visitors per month.

I’ve rounded these stats to the nearest 500

Month One, April: 500
Month Two, May: 1000
Month Three, June: 2500
Month Four, July: 6000
Month Five, August: 3000

So I don’t know if I’m wasting my time yet. I need to keep working on the blog. But generally the trend has generally been upwards. Please note that at the beginning of August I moved my site off  WordPress to its own domain name and lost traffic because of that. I’m now back in the search engine no go zone and may have lost regular visitors and subscribers too. Hopefully it will pick up again.

I think that I’ve been successful in inspiring and motivating people. I’m basing this on the positive comments and feedback from readers. It’s frustrating not to be able to reach a wider audience though. It makes me sad to think that an article I spend ten hours writing may only be read by a hundred people.

3. How do I have time for blogging?

I write constantly. I’m always on  my computer. Mainly from 9am until 2.30pm when I pick up the kids, then from 7.30pm when they go to bed until late every weekday. I write on Sunday afternoons too. Oh, I admit, sometimes on Saturdays as well. It’s strange really as I’m usually quite work shy but I seem to have turned into a workaholic because I’m enjoying doing it. The only drawback is that writing is good for the soul but not for the figure.

4. How do I get readers?

I haven’t just been writing what I hope are quality articles to get these visitor stats. I’ve also been plugging my website shamelessly, and sometimes covertly all over the Internet, on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter ^[3], commenting on other blogs, posting on forums, entering blog carnivals and adding my site to online directories and blog listings.

I share tips about blog writing ^[4] at Successful Blogging.

5. How is my novel coming on?

I put the manuscript away for six weeks after finishing it to give myself the necessary distance to see what its strengths and flaws are. Now I’m slowly revising, reworking and perfecting it. I will be sending it to agents this month come hell or high water.

But the good news is that I am writing daily, and writing for hours at a time. Here’s what I’ve written apart from articles for In the Hot Spot:

• Travel articles – one on Granada, Nicaragua was published in The Sunday Telegraph ^[5]. I even got paid for it.
• A short story for a competition – a long shot but you can only try.
• A travelogue about our family adventures moving from New Zealand to Panama to Costa Rica to Australia!
• A guest post ^[6] for a blog about blogging.
• Articles for travel and article websites.

Plus I have about a gazillion other ideas I don’t have time to write at the moment, but I’m collecting them all up so maybe I’ll be able to one day.

6. How do I stay motivated?

1. I’m enjoying it. I love the idea of inspiring and motivating people and it helps keep me on track too with my goals too. It’s a huge challenge thinking of articles to write which will interest people but it’s fun.

2. I’m making progress ~ I can see that from my stats and all the amazing comments from readers. I love the challenging goal I’ve set myself and want to see if I can achieve it.

Thanks so much to all my readers for visiting, reading and commenting. I couldn’t have done it without you. Good luck with all your plans!

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If you like any of my articles, please Tweet them or email a friend with the link. My clever computer boffin has added a little tool to make it easier for you to email it to friends, or add it to your favorite social media website. I hear that if you Digg it, or bookmark it on Delicious or Stumbleupon, that will get more readers here. Many thanks for your help, I appreciate it.