One year of blogging

Before I became a blogger, I did a bit of homework. Not much, just a bit. I checked out other peoples' blog sites, I spoke to a few bloggers about what works for them, in terms of style, frequency etc and talked to a whole lot of people.

I spoke to friends about ideas and insights and I spoke to family about how they would feel about me doing this. Specifically about going public with my baldness!

Everyone was supportive, many urged caution in terms of keeping privacy and separate from work. But all said go for it.

My intention was to do it for six months and see how it goes. My aim was to write about alopecia every week, every Friday as it turned out. The rest, well, I left open.

After the launch at the end of May 2012, a year this week, I found my rhythm. Three blogs a week. One usually reflective, one a bit more random and silly and the third about alopecia.

It was an easy rhythm to maintain and the content just emerged. I thought I would run out of (lack of) hair blogs, but somehow the content kept flowing. I never dreamt that there was so much about Alopecia to tell you all about.

There were however three blogs that I had to tear out of myself. They were so difficult to write, really painful and they actually took me weeks of thinking. Accompanied with a whole lot of energy to put this story into words. These blogs were "My story". Raw and until then, a story, that had not been told.

(Hyperlinked if you want to read them again.)

Part One - The Discovery
Part Two - The Tradtional Treatments
Part Three - The Non-tradtional Treatments

As I write this, I realise Part Four is still not told. Part Four - The solutions.

The ones that got, and still do get, the most attention and laughs are:

Tupperware     Being an average mother     As I turn 40     Best Marigold Hotel

My personal two favourites are:
The contamination of experience  and  If you were wine

It seems these resonated with people and made them think a little bit different about themselves and life. This makes me feel really good!

However different blogs appealed differently to different people. Your comments, which I love, tell me that.

I have now over 200 readers a week from all over the globe. My biggest following is the USA, yet I only know who two of you are!!!!

India, China, Russia make frequent appearances, as do my loyal and many readers in UK, Canada and Switzerland.  Thank you for keeping on coming back! Many of you subscribe, others just pop in when they feel like it. Clearly I dont know "who" any of the statistics are, but I know I am read. That feels fantastic!

So a year on, I can say I am proud and pleased with where my blog has gotten to. I have even been published. Alopecia Matters.  This poem is now featured in a book. That was an unexpected acheivement!

The journey continues, and thanks to you all for your comments, both on and off the blog, and to my "Pathfinder", for encouraging me to become a blogger in the first place. She saw something in me,  I didn't know was there. Thanks for keeping the faith. To you I raise a glass of milk!!

Here's to the future, wherever it may go!!