WHY I STARTED BLOGGING

I've always loved to write.

When I was young, I would sit at home and write stories on Microsoft Word on our home computer. I would sit there for hours, trying to find the right font for the story, the right names for the characters and of course the best title. Most of these little stories were loosely based around my life (which was actually very boring in reality.)

Aaaand eventually, my love for writing stories on Word was replaced with love for the internet. MySpace took up most of my time. If you remember MySpace, you'll remember that there were "bulletin" features and "blog" features.

I don't remember too many people that utilized the blog feature, but I used the bulletins like they were about to go out of style. (They did.) I would write about my day, chronicle my thoughts and post random quotes that matched my moody teenager self. I deleted my MySpace years ago, but now I wish I could go look at it again just to see the kinds of stuff my 13-year-old self would post.

Eventually, I made a blog. My first blog was actually a weight loss blog that I made when I was 17. I would post about my ups and downs of healthy eating and exercise and injuries. When I stopped trying to lose weight, I stopped writing.

Less than a year later, I moved to college and made another blog. The blog has since been made private and deleted so only I can see it and there is some pretty embarrassing stuff on there. I started that blog as a way to write about my college adventures so that I would remember them as I got older, and so my dad could read what I had to say since he didn't have facebook. Again, I lost all motivation and stopped blogging again. 

Finally, last summer, I started Short for Alexandra. First, it was called "Allie Tries to Blog" since I couldn't come up with any fun names, and I had the intention of using this blog to write about plus size fashion and college life. 

My early posts are mostly about how excited I was to visit Europe and what I would wear while I was there. They also included thoughts about how I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got older (I have a clue now!)

It's been so amazing to see myself grow as a person and a writer using blogs and Short for Alexandra.

I've used this summer to take Short for Alexandra more seriously (mostly because I was home alone for nearly A MONTH) and the work has paid off! Last month, I hit 10,000 page views (mostly thanks to this post which went kinda viral on Pinterest) and I bought a domain. 

I'm terrible at keeping my blogging schedule steady, especially during the school year, so the next few weeks I'm going to try to get myself in the habit of getting posts scheduled and written. In fact, I'm currently writing this on Tuesday and it will be posted on Wednesday. Another one will be posted Friday, too. THINKING AHEAD.

Who knows where Short for Alexandra will take me if I keep it up! I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Why did YOU start blogging? I love reading other people's stories!

xoxo