Welcome! What Are We Doing Here?
(Originally published on October 23, 2022)
I've often wondered what starting a blog would look like. It was over two years ago that I started researching what blog ownership and creation entail. After much consideration, as well as some key discussions with different connections I have made since launching Depressive Hacks on Twitter and Instagram earlier this year, I finally decided to pull the trigger and launch a blog.
When I first thought about the mission of Depressive Hacks, I had no idea what I was looking to do. When people talk about launching a business or work in general, the phrase "do what you love" is thrown around a lot. I greatly admire anyone who is able to make their passions and their work match up. This is not an easy task and should be applauded. Writing has always come naturally to me and over a year ago, I started writing for hire online. It's now been almost 20 months since I started this process and this is the first thing I have written that is not for a freelance contract for a customer.
It's strange honestly. Every sentence that I write is something that I have full autonomy over publishing in a public setting. I am so excited to write for myself though and to bring an inside look at my journey and all of the different areas that I explore in my life out of interest and passion. I spend so much time learning and acquiring knowledge that I cannot wait to have somewhere to share some of it.
What's exciting is that I can focus the blog on whatever has my attention at the time. I really hope to utilize it to expand the focus of Depressive Hacks, especially when it comes to a broader mission of learning. I came to this idea through the love of spreading information I've learned and the broader goal of doing something productive to preoccupy my time during the winter. As someone who has clinical depression and experiences Seasonal Affective Disorder as well during the upcoming months of the year, I have found that productivity really helps me to get through the winter months.
I have a wide variety of topics that I want to cover and some will likely interest you more than others. Ironically, I've read a bunch of articles about what the best practices are to do in order to scale and grow your blog viewership. I've done enough SEO (search engine optimization) writing for hire to know what's appealing to the algorithms and increases the activity you get from Google and other search engines. In fact, I pay Google for the rights to my domain name, which is a purchase I'm very excited about.
However, I'm currently being pulled in so many directions that the thought of trying to SEO Optimise my own blog for free makes me feel instant nausea. I guess someday if I really needed to try to generate income, I could try to do some of my own SEO writing, but I'd prefer to make a blog for what I want and for my own enjoyment before making a blog with the sole goal of making money. It's important that I try to balance my work with the rest of my life and give myself a lot of leeway going into a difficult period of the year.
So this is the part where I talk a bit more about what to expect going forward since I'm sure if you've come here and you're familiar with Depressive Hacks, you're wondering if every post is going to be like this one. The answer is no. I will add more formatting and structure going forward. Each post will be focused on something specific that I want to write about. The topics will vary greatly but each will be specified within the post title. I am not sure where the first direction will be yet, so we'll see where that goes, but I am excited to have started somewhere and appreciate any early interest at this point. I bless you for reading this and wish you well.