If you’re looking for an origin story, you’ve come to the right place.
the beginning
I technically started this blog in the summer of 2020, though only the odd tumbleweed and friendly bot rolled by those first few months.
I had purchased the domain in the middle of July (more on that later) and then slaved away at creating what I thought would be the perfect layout. This took me deep into August since web design can be pretty overwhelming for someone with zero coding experience.
It looked a little something like this:
I mean, it looked okay. Acceptable, even. But I knew I would never be satisfied.
I was focusing too much energy on the appearance and not enough on the content.
I didn’t even have any posts at this point, aside from WordPress’s cheery “Hello world!” default (deleted before I took the screenshot above).
go left, not right
My initial idea for the blog was self-improvement, with a particular focus on productivity and time management.
After reading a couple of self-help books, I suddenly felt this burning need to embark on an altruistic journey to empower people to improve their lives. But the thing is, I read these books sometime in June, and I haven’t really picked up that many self-help books since. It quickly became clear to me that self-improvement isn’t my real passion.
I asked myself one simple question:
Would I still be writing about self-improvement if I knew that no one would read my blog?
The answer was surprising to me: no. No, I would not. Sure, it’s an interest of mine, but it’s a casual interest at best.
Then I asked myself a follow up to same question, with “self-improvement” replaced by “writing”.
The answer was a resounding yes.
If no one ever reads this blog, if it’s perpetually stuck to the bottom of Google’s search results, I will still write about writing. Why? Because it’s of immense personal value to me. I want to be a better writer. I need to be a better writer. It’s nice and all to say that your reasons for starting your blog are totally selfless, but then where is the value if no one ever reads your posts? It’s my philosophy that motivation should be a little bit selfish at first in order to be sustainable, and then it can evolve into something more selfless.
My passion? The one thing that makes me feel most alive in the world? It’s writing. It’s always been writing. Ever since I showed modest aptitude for it in grade school and went on to write the first few pathetic chapters of my very first novel at the age of 14 (and very incomplete, but mayhap for the best). Nothing compares to the rush of writing something down and suddenly having that thing be true in the world you’ve created.
You’re the architect of your very own custom realities. There’s nothing else like it.
go up, not down
Get ready for a ramble.
I was initially dead-set on to monetizing the blog. I was enticed by the opportunity to blog full-time one day. And while that would certainly be nice, I realized that I didn’t want to compromise my mission of creating a blog that I would genuinely want to read. I was so tired of seeing blogs with ads plastered all over them. I still find it kind of sickening, to be perfectly honest. Yes, the reader can use an ad blocker if they really want to, and some bloggers are just trying to make ends meet. But it’s that intention to sell, sell, sell that I find really off-putting. Hell, I hardly even use Facebook anymore because there are ads everywhere and I would occasionally catch myself scrolling endlessly to view all of the colourways of a particular product—spending time that I would never get back, ordering meaningless things that I never needed in the first place (minimalism has changed my life for the better, but that is perhaps a topic for another time).
In addition, I’m not sure how much of this is due to a particular infectious microscopic particle changing the way we live right now, but I was beginning to see an influx of ads for online courses around the same time that I was starting my blog (including online courses about creating your own online courses). I thought, hey, here’s another opportunity to maybe make some money. But again I was at war with myself because I felt like what I had to offer wasn’t really worth paying for. You can find so much free advice on the internet, and I personally learn best from books anyway. So if circumstances were switched, even I wouldn’t buy my own self-improvement or writing courses.
There’s a strange feeling associated with wanting to help someone but also asking for money in exchange for helping them. Yes, you should probably be compensated for the work you put in, but I’ve always found that this leaves me with kind of an icky feeling. As if I would be taking advantage of them, especially when they could just spend some time on the internet and find the help they’re looking for at no cost. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to shake this feeling.
To clarify, I’m specifically talking about the search for information here; for other things, like dentistry (and other services), it’s different since you can’t just look up online how to give yourself a filling—you’d still need the materials and the technical skills, if we ignore the fact that you wouldn’t be able to see shit anyway. When people buy online courses which provide information available for free elsewhere, really what they are paying for is the packaging. And that doesn’t quite sit well with me.
So as of right now, I firmly believe that I won’t be monetizing this blog. Could I change my mind in the future? Maybe. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. And I will definitely be revisiting this blog post first to remind myself why I made my decision in the first place.
the other domains were all taken, dammit
I wanted to purchase a new domain for this blog because I wasn’t sure that “The Accountability Blog” still fit with the new direction it was taking. So why didn’t I in the end? Basically, all of the other potential domains I searched for related to writing were already taken (including “writethatthing.com”, to my utter dismay). But you can still hold yourself accountable to write, so I thought what the heck. Close enough. It is what it is (my reaction to most everything in 2020, and easily becoming my reaction to most things in 2021 as well).
in conclusion
It became clear to me early on (though still a little bit later than I would have liked) that this blog would not be sustainable unless I wrote about things that truly mattered to me, and in a manner that aligned with my principles.
This is the blog that I would want to read.
And I hope it’s the blog that you would want to read too.
As always, feel free to discuss in the comments below or reach out via the contact form. I’d love to hear from you!
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