Chilihead at Don’t Try This At Home is asking about our “blogging stories”. Sounded like fun, so I thought I’d join. Click here to read all the other stories!

How did you start blogging?
I started blogging in April of 2004 because of my friend, Beth. I was immediately addicted. I started with Blogger and moved to WordPress in December of 2005.

Did you intend to be a blog with a following? If so, how did you go about it?
No, I started blogging without really expecting people to read. For a long time, only friends in real life read my blog. Then, sometime in 2005, I started reading blogs of people I didn’t know – starting with Biblical Womanhood and Amy’s Humble Musings. I moved on from there. Today, the majority of my blog readers (I believe) are still people who know me personally. I do enjoy the visits and comments of those I don’t know in person, though. :-) I would love to have a popular blog that would get lots of comments, but I am pretty content with where my blog is now and the direction it’s going.

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
In the beginning, I mostly just talked about my life and feelings. It was a way for my friends and I to stay in touch – especially as we graduated from college and moved to various parts of the country/world. I’ve been pretty successful in that respect; I know I would not have such a close relationship with a lot of my college friends if it weren’t for blogs.

Now, I’m rethinking my desire for this blog. Why should people read my blog? Should I think of it as a ministry? Should I make it more specific in focus, or should I continue to talk about everything and anything? Once I think through these things, I’ll be better able to work on achieving those goals.

Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?
My focus has changed somewhat, and is changing now. It started with being a very personal blog, only interesting to my face-to-face friends. When I started reading blogs of Christian women that were more general about thoughts and issues, I found that I too wanted to write about these things. I got together with my best friend, Beth, and we started Onward & Upward. I enjoyed that, but I struggled with having two blogs. In the end I decided to do all my writing at twentysixcats, and I am in the process of changing the focus to blend both personal life and more thoughtful pieces and issues.

I have been and will continue to be blogging less about my personal life for many reasons. As my readership grows to a more general audience, those details aren’t as interesting. I also have found that I need to be careful about what I say exactly – for example, I don’t want my boss to read something I’ve written and consequently lose my job. I think blogging has become somewhat more introspective thinking for me and less of a daily recounting of events. I don’t want to lose my original readership, though, because ultimately the readers I care most about are my face-to-face friends.

Oh and you know how some people meet their spouses through blogs? Well I would love, love, LOVE to meet some new (local) friends. Surely there are other Christian women bloggers from Atlanta that I can meet and become best friends with. :-)

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started?
I haven’t gotten burned by this, but when I started blogging I would write about people who drove me nuts, or in great detail about previous jobs. In retrospect, I wish I’d exercised greater caution because now I realize how many random people can read what I’ve written. I also wish I had made an effort not to write based on a current feeling. I am now embarrassed by some of the rants on here, even though they were so important to me at the time. Reading through posts several times before publishing helps, and better yet – saving a draft and coming back to it later is an excellent way to avoid height-of-the-moment posts that I’ll regret later.

Do you make money with your blog?
No, but I would consider it if I had a larger readership.

Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?
They all *KNOW* about it. I don’t think my husband reads it unless I specifically ask him to. I’m pretty sure the rest of my immediate family does.

What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?
1. You don’t know who could be reading what you write. Be nice when you talk about people or situations. Be careful about how you present yourself, because you never know how it might affect your employment or future employment.
2. Blogging is a journey. Enjoy it! Your blog will change as you grow and learn things. You’ll be amazed when you go back and reread your old posts, and you’ll be thankful you have them for posterity’s sake.