{"id":6592,"date":"2013-05-02T02:45:22","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T06:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=6592"},"modified":"2013-10-16T22:12:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T02:12:22","slug":"tell-me-do-i-still-blog-from-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/tell-me-do-i-still-blog-from-the-heart.html","title":{"rendered":"Tell Me, Do I Still Blog From The Heart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tell<\/a>When I put up the post asking where all the first-generation Nigerian bloggers went to<\/strong><\/a>, I think I got more information than I bargained for. And I loved it. A lot of people said that bloggers don’t blog from the heart anymore. \u00a0That’s really sad.<\/p>\n

When I started writing nine years ago on Nigerian websites like Nigerian Village Square<\/strong><\/a> and Nigerians In America<\/strong><\/a>, I really did not have a plan. I was just glad that I could share my thoughts – no matter how outlandish – with other people. And the responses I got for each write-up was ah-may-zeen! I got e-mails from women who said they were encouraged by my words, and I got e-mails from men who had fallen head over heels in love with me *squeals*<\/strong> and of course, I got e-mails from people who said I was straight up stupid. I thanked them all the same.<\/p>\n

One thing I know for sure was that I cherished every single e-mail, and I looked forward to constructive criticisms. If I did not construct my sentence well, or if I used the wrong\u00a0punctuation, or if I did a bad job at conveying my message, or if I even had an entirely wrong idea about the issue I was writing about, I wanted to know. It made me a better writer. It really did.<\/p>\n

I remember the people that would send me e-mails and leave comments on the sites and tell me that I was clearly an old hag (not their exact words), that I was a bitter thirty-something year old woman because I had no husband and I was too crazy and extreme for any man to love me, and that I should stop doing that nonsense<\/em> (writing) and go and get married and have children before my eggs dried up. That was nine years ago, and I still haven’t clocked 30. Go figure.<\/p>\n

I never did tell them my age, and because I was anonymous, they did not know what I looked like, so they could only judge me by my words. That was when I found out that the bitterness of a single woman starts at age 30. Apparently, 30 is the abominable age of not being married. If you are 30 and single, you have a legitimate reason to commit suicide because I mean, what else are you living for?<\/p>\n

Then I discovered blogging in 2006, and I took it and ran with it. I just loved the idea of being able to write as much as I wanted and post it on my own space for everyone who cared to read. It was never about money, business, or fame. And I knew nothing about Google Analytics, SEO, page views, and unique visits. Seven years later, a lot has changed (as I now know what these terms mean, and I smile when the numbers go up), but I hope a lot has remained the same.<\/p>\n

Verastic is no longer just a space I come and have fun with. She’s still my baby, but she’s now also my business. She’s still a baby business, but she’s a business all the same. I have not lost my love for blogging; if anything, I love it more now than I did before. In the past seven years, I have grown chronologically and in many other ways, too. And my blog has also grown. For example, I no longer blog in text speak, and each time I see the text speak in my really old posts, I cringe. But I don’t edit them because that would be tampering with history. I don’t even edit the typos. In real life, you cannot edit your past as you see fit (although I wish we could).<\/p>\n

If there is no change, then it means there is no growth. I have not learned everything, and I don’t think I ever will. I think there’s new information about new media every second. I may have changed the way my blog looks, and I may have added ads and sponsored posts, but through it all, I hope the message has remained the same.<\/p>\n

It’s very tempting to join the bandwagon and decide that I’m going to start writing about celebrity gossip, or that I’m going to start giving news<\/em>, or that I’m going to start posting every pair of shoes I find, but that is not me at all. This has never been, isn’t now, and never will be a site where you come for breaking news or celebrity gossip or fashion updates. Because I’m trying so hard to remain myself, I turn down so many things for this blog: press releases, new songs from artists known and unknown, celebrity photo shoots, and more. When I do blog about certain things, like current events or celebrities, it’s because I genuinely have an opinion on the issue.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I hope you get from my blog: I’m not as young as I used to be (as I am now of\u00a0marriageable<\/em>\u00a0age), but I am still a kid at heart. I have an active imagination, and I want you to know it. I’m very playful, and I have been sometimes criticized to play too much, but it’s all I know to do.<\/p>\n

There aren’t enough words to tell you how much I love this community I have here with you. Each time you leave me a comment, you add a laugh wrinkle to my face (which I try to scrub off with Apricot scrub). I feel like my blog attracts people like me, people who don’t take life too seriously and are quick to laugh at everything.<\/p>\n

I have big dreams that are so wide I can’t see their end. I will get rich and famous, and my blog will get me there. But I do not want to compromise my authenticity. I want to have a unique voice; when you stumble upon a post somewhere with no name, I want you to read it and suspect that I may have written it because you recognize my voice. Now, this paragraph sounds like Jesus saying that His sheep should recognize His voice, but trust me, I do not walk on water (as if you need to be convinced).<\/p>\n

So I want to know what you really, really, REALLY think of me. And please don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, as lying or sugar coating will do me no good. Do you think I still blog from the<\/em> heart? My heart, that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I put up the post asking where all the first-generation Nigerian bloggers went to, I think I got more information than I bargained for. And I loved it. A lot of people said that bloggers don’t blog from the heart anymore. \u00a0That’s really sad. When I started writing nine years ago on Nigerian websitesRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[561],"tags":[593,643,759,97],"class_list":["post-6592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal","tag-blog","tag-bloggers","tag-tell-me","tag-verastic","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTell Me, Do I Still Blog From The Heart? 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