Woo hoo – it’s been a year since I pressed publish on my Brazen Mummy blog.
And what a year!
Whilst I still essentially blog for fun, I’ve had the best of times flexing my writing muscles and sharing my words with the world.
If you follow my blog you may recall my main writing project is working on getting my romcom novels published. Ooh, I do hope to have more news for you on that very soon…
And that kind of explains where I’ve been for the last couple of months – working on my new author website. You can have a sneaky peek here, and you’re all invited to follow my journey over there too.
I’ll be sharing lots of tips and tricks for writers on mindset, productivity and getting noticed, as well as book reviews and other fun.
In fact if you sign up, you will receive my free top productivity tips to help you get more stuff done. And it’s actually a pretty cute doc – I made it myself!
Anyway, jibber-jabber. To commemorate one year of blogginess (not a word. Definitely should be) I dug out this quirky diary I kept when I was setting up my Brazen Mummy blog, one year ago.
I meant to publish it at the time, but then I posted the one about how the first week of blogging was as crazy as the first week of motherhood, and this beauty kind of got side-lined.
But this made me laugh when I found it recently, so I thought it was time for it to shine. If you’ve ever set up a blog or done anything similarly brain frazzling, let me know if you can relate…
Day One
Mummy buys domain name and hosting. Gee whiz on a bike, this is not bloody cheap. Mummy frantically hides receipts. It will be fiiiiiiiiine.
Mummy feels a bit sick. Surely too many After Eights? They were surprisingly nice.
Mummy looks at website builder thingy. Oh, hell.
Mummy searches for suitable photos. Urgh. Mummy looks dumb and non-writerly in all of them.
Mummy inspects fridge for ways to celebrate when B-Daddy returns. Finds half a bottle of 4% pink fizz left over from new year. Rock n roll.
Mummy will need better offerings than flat alcopops to get B-Daddy on board. Maybe make a special tea. Could a Loyd Grossman curry considered special? Hmm. Better add naan.
Day Two
Mummy continues reading the tome that is Blogging for Dummies. Mummy concludes she is worse than a dummy as even the “Put simply…” section hurts. Mummy should have stuck to making pom poms.
Dummy book harps on about code. CODE?! Mummy’s mind is blown. Time for a rest. And maybe a biscuit. Where did Mummy put those After Eights?
Later
Mummy realises she must up her game on social media to succeed at this blogging. (Ie bother to use social media and maybe join this Instagram thing.)
Mummy needs to get better at taking selfies and less horrified at the sight of her own face.
Mummy takes a selfie and posts it on Facebook.
There.
Mummy is now a social network animal.
Day Three
Mummy thinks about branding. Aha, just like The Apprentice! What was it now?
Sex sells?
Sex does not sell?
That thing they did about Pants Man once was funny. Hmm. Mummy decides not to take tips from The Apprentice.
Mummy sets up photo shoot for picture for website homepage, with B-Daddy as clueless photographer.
House is a pigsty. Little B will not sit still. All photos hideous. Will have to edit the crap out of bad shot and send B-Daddy to photography school.
Mummy spends HOURS OF HER PRECIOUS LIFE trying to change fonts and move dialogue boxes on stupid website builder. HOURS. This is surely the simple bit.
Home page looks dreadful after a day of hard work. Bleurgh.
Day Four
Mummy learns about analysing statistics of blog.
Lots of funny words like traffic and hits that have nothing to do with lorries or boxing.
Graphs suck; Mummy only wanted to write.
Mummy will just wing it when the time comes. Likely there will be none of this traffic as no one will visit site, then Mummy can JUST GO BACK TO BED.
Mummy decides to hide from blogging book and silly website and work on blog posts. If website looks terrible, then she’d better write something bloody good to distract folk. Maybe use the word naked..?
Mummy puts up first blog post in draft.
Dratted fancy editing tool (Yoast. Dumb name) deems Mummy’s hard work “unreadable”.
Un-bloody-readable?!
Apparently a nicely crafted paragraph has no place on the internet. Readers prefer white space over actual words.
Mummy bangs head on table.
Day Five
Mummy still can’t change bloody fonts.
Considers waiting ‘til Little B is 16, by which stage he’ll know all about these plugins.
He’ll laugh at Mummy, just like she used to laugh at her own mother for not being able to work the video player.
Video player? God, Mummy is ANCIENT.
By end of day Mummy could just cry. Only Weds. Can’t even drink WINE.
None of silly buttons work. Mummy is completely overwhelmed and out of her depth, like small person trying to get head around ALL OF THE WORDLY STUFF. Mummy wants to throw her toys out of the pram and stamp the bloody crap out of them.
Days Six, Seven, Eight…
(Mummy loses count as days and nights merge into one and a darkness descends.)
Mummy begins to lose her mind. Gives herself crash course in widgets and Search Engine Something-or-other. Urrrrgggghhhh.
B-Daddy is hiding in cupboard. Mummy must be particularly scary today. Must work on being pleasant, non-raging wife, or B-Daddy will be doing a flipping runner.
Day One Million and Whatever
Mummy reads the entire internet on customising websites.
Mummy watches every You Tube video ever made.
Mummy is none the wiser. Mummy decides to just push all of the buttons and hope for a sodding miracle.
Some Days Later
Mummy is ACTUALLY RAGING.
Nothing on website is working.
Mummy presses button to start “chat” with some help desk or other and LETS RIP. Says she wants money back as she has broken everything and can’t be arsed to fix it.
But day fourteen of cooling off period has passed.
MUMMY IS NOT COOL.
Gives agent a piece of her ugly mind. Agent hangs up. Mummy must stop with this attitude.
Some Days After That
Mummy has not eaten or slept for days. Has been glued to her screen like dusty skeleton, tapping dementedly at keys.
Child has become feral.
Mummy will not be beaten.
She will conquer this hellish mess, she will get this website up and running and she will take back control of her life if it kills her.
That is if she’s not dead already. She’s not quite sure.
Fast Approaching Mummy’s Self-Imposed Deadline
A miracle has happened. Light is beginning to dawn.
After copious amounts of trial, error and making stuff up, Mummy is starting to find her way.
Website looks vaguely how she wanted it (even if the whole thing will probably crash and set fire to the world once she presses publish), and the snagging list is now well below four thousand.
She may actually finish it in this lifetime.
Hell, if the damned thing works she’ll probably give it all up and become a web designer. Mummy is ON FIRE!
Shortly Thereafter
Mummy gets brave (reckless/stupid) and decides to press publish to look at website looks live.
Oh.
For.
The.
Love.
Of.
GOD!!!!!
Disaster. The website which appears on Mummy’s screen bears no resemblance to the design masterpiece (!) Mummy has been slaving away on for one whole month.
Where are Mummy’s precious fonts? The beautiful images? Why has her stupid head been CHOPPED OFF?! Just shoot Mummy now.
But wait. B-Daddy has arrived with what her brazen nan refers to as “strong drink”. Does Mummy want strong drink? Yes. Yes, she does.
Some strong drinks and bad words later, and Mummy has somehow botched the website to look mildly less offensive.
Mummy resigns herself to the fact it will always be rickety, there will be no such thing as “branding”, and her head may always be missing on some devices. But life must go on.
Deadline Day
Mummy lets go of perfection and presses publish.
The internet does not catch fire!
She stalks everyone she knows to take a look. She gets 361 views! She does not know what this means, but it sounds impressive. Mummy feels flipping fierce!
After a year of being “just a mummy”, she has done a thing for herself. A thing which seemed so far from possible it made her brain hurt to consider it.
And now she will go out into the world, with her words as her armour, and do it for the mummies. Hell yeah!
Well, just as soon as she’s polished off the After Eights and that 4% fizz…
Over to You
I would love to know if you’ve ever done anything that scared you (setting up a blog, starting a new job, having a tiddly new baby) and whether it felt as crazy as this! Scroll down and pop your thoughts in the comments box, if you fancy…
If you fancy more fun, the one about impostor syndrome was a goody. Or my sarcastic guide to blogging terms. Ooh…
Please do hit one of the social share buttons if you want to share the love on social media.
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Thanks for reading.
Anita. xx
Photo Credits
Featured image – Photo by malcolm garret from Pexels
Hilarious!
I’m yet to even attempt to set up my blog!
I fear I won’t achieve half as much as you have!
Congratulations lovely 😊
Oh no – don’t let me put you off! It was probably more complicated for me as I paid to be self-hosted. If you have a free WordPress blog it is surely much easier. 😆 Anyway, you have lots of us to help you. Thanks for reading, gorgeous lady. Xx
Brilliant! Although I am still living this hell almost 2 years later!
I love your blog, it looks great and you’re just so damn funny!
Your days of hell certainly paid off my lovely x
Thank you, sweet lady. Right back at you with your awesome blog. Xx
Congratulations on one year of blogging. Its definitely a bit of a mission to get all set up isn’t it?
Mission almost impossible! Thanks for reading, lovely lady. Xx
This is great. Lol. I can relate to so much here. It can be tough and exhausting. I’m still not sleeping. Lol. Congrats on your journey.
It really can wear you out. I had no idea! Oh no – hope you get some sleep soon, sweetie. Xx
Happy birthday to your blog! I’ve loved reading your post and I wish lots of lovely things for you!
Nanny M x
Hey beautiful! Lovely to catch you here. Will be hopping over to your blog to have a read soon. Xx
Thank you so much! Xx
Starting our blog, trying to monetize and grow it- all has been a rather scary process! Wayyyyy harder than I ever thought it would be! Becoming a mom is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done though! So worth it- but having a toddler is like constantly being on the edge of a heart attack. My little was literally trying to jump off of the table ten minutes ago. Sigh.
Great and informative post!! Encouraging!
Oh yes, toddlers are crazy! Mine is always trying to lose his fingers in dangerous manoeuvres. What’s all that about?! Thanks for reading, lovely lady. XX
Happy Birthday Brazen Mummy! This made me laugh! I could totally relate to your experience. I started a few months earlier than you and was going through all those ups and downs. Blogging is one wild experience 🙂
Wild is the perfect word! Thanks for reading, fabulous mumma. Xx
Love this! It took me two months to set up my website/blog and felt all the same emotions/frustrations! Hilarious!
Thank you, lovely lady. Wow, I know. It’s a struggle, hey! Hopefully the fun of blogging is worth all the pain though. Keep trucking! Xx