Blog-related Goals

By the time this goes up, I'll either be working on or finishing at least a couple of these goals. I hope. I have no idea what life could throw at me before this is published.

This is also related to point #4.

#1: blog redesign
I already wrote a post about this, but tl;dr I have found an interest in web design and I'd like to make my page reflect that. It's been the same for a while, something I threw together to make it presentable, but now I want to make it more than that.

#2: talking to people
I'm kind of terrible at this, both online and off. I've gotten much better at talking to people in person, though, and I'm hoping to improve on my online people skills. I'd love to talk to more people and right now the only thing that's really holding me back is my confidence level.

I've improved on that, though. The other day (probably a month back by the time this is live) I commented on someone's blog for the first time! It was a little comment, but it felt like a pretty big step to me. Nothing exploded when I did it. In fact, I saw the author's reply to it, and I was just all-over very content.

I'm hoping that I can become brave enough to talk to completely new people and collab with others one day!

#3: copying reviews to goodreads
Honestly, a lot of my reasoning for posting book reviews here is that I was kind of scared of posting on goodreads. I was afraid of the larger potential audience, and thus my only reviews so far are stars.

I'd like to go back and retroactively add all the reviews I've written, though. I've become more confident in my reviews, and I'd love to add my reviews to the site, even though very few people will end up seeing them, anyway. Being on the site for this long has led me to realize that posting my reviews there will be just as "shouting into the void" as posting here is. Unless my review gets a lot of likes. Then it'll be more visible. But I don't really see that happening.

#4: making more graphics
I made graphics for, like, two posts before I stopped using my editing laptop on a regular basis. I honestly don't think I've touched it since March. The laptop I use now doesn't have Photoshop, which was my go-to -- only Paint and an expired trial of InDesign.

Of course, I've finally come to realize I've been making excuses and that there's nothing stopping me from using online resources to make graphics. I've realized that some of my posts are un-pin-able because there's no image to use on Pinterest. Eventually I'd like to go back and make graphics (even just really simple ones) for all of my blog posts.

This would also be really good practice to improve my (still pretty basic) design skills. There's probably going to be a huge lack of consistency as I try to find my groove, so please bear with me!

Anyway, I hope to start working on these asap!!