My 2018 - This is my Hobby: Writing Blogs/Articles/Essays

Haha, who knew I'd be blogging a lot these days. Actually writing blogs/articles has even become more of a hobby now because I blog and earn money from it. What fun!

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When I was in college, I started to do online posts and journals, you know, like online diaries. Heck I needed to release some of my issues to the world then so I wrote online diaries. 😂 What an online whiner. 😂

Over the years, when I stopped posting diary entries I began writing essays or movie reviews and such. Well hey I love writing so where else am I gonna put it for all the world to see except in the online world? I'm no social butterfly so writing makes me share more of what I know and find out etc etc.

I am also a frustrated writer/author. Somehow I can never finish any novel I start. It always ends up unfinished after a few chapters. Perhaps because I only write when inspiration strikes me. When it is gone I can't finish the damned thing however much I try. Lol. And so the only thing I enjoy the most is to write blogs more than fictional stories, to write reviews of books, movies or TV shows and any random stuff or compose essays of things I find interesting.

I used to write articles for my high school and college school papers because hey, I like to write. In college I had a regular column in the vernacular. Lol. In high school we didn't have that except news articles and essays too but I wasn't too serious about it then even when they made me the editor in my senior year.

Heck i was insecure at how I got the role so I wasn't able to fully do any editorial stuff. I mean I didn't apply for it and didn't strive to be the editor so when they gave it to me without even asking me if I wanted it, I was happy but then sad. At the time when I tried to be an editor, the teachers did the job for me so my thinking then was why should I do any editing if they won't let me do it? Also nobody told me how it should be done so how should I know what to do? Ah, pats pats to my high school self.

In college I had much more freedom to do what I wanted to write because hey I was a failure of an editor in high school. I wanted to somehow redeem myself but then when the time came to be the college paper's editor in chief, I didn't apply for the post because I was in my thesis year. Didn't have much time to work on our group thesis and edit articles so I never applied for it, much to the dismay of our school paper adviser. Haha.

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They still gave me some kind of position in the paper even after I was a no-show to any writing post application. Hey I was sleeping after a thesis all-nighter so I couldn't make it. Health is Wealth. Haha. Thanks to our adviser then I still had a chance to write articles and such even during my senior year.

The one who became the editor did a great job so I was fine with just dropping in and out of our "office" whenever I had the time, which also felt like a second home. ❤ Ah those were the days. They always told me I was unfair because I never spent my idle times there. Huh. I don't think I had any idle time except when I was there. Oh but it's not too much idleness because we were building friendships, that would eventually shatter. (No no, I won't write about what happened.) And we were also busy editing articles or making them and doing the layout for the school paper and the literary folio and such. See the folios below.

Yeah, well we had some food allowance so it was ok. And we can sometimes play on the computer too so I had no complaints whatsoever. Being part of the school paper was one of the best things in college. I had no other academic extracurricular activity back then except for that one.

Oh and I also wrote for two of our literary folio, pictured above, one for each year! Haha! Perfect way to have had my short stories published. 😁 Too bad I don't think I got any feedback on my teddy bear horror story. (Well what can I say, O. Henry was my writing idol then. 😉) But I did see a fellow school paper member bringing a teddy bear to school one day. Hahaha. Must be because I wrote about my guy character becoming an accidental chick magnet because of his big teddy bear. 😂

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Recently I've been writing for money because hey, I can finally write what I like and earn something from it! Thanks to Steemit and to Bitlanders I can do all the writing I want when I want to and get compensated for it. Ah these days are the best time to be alive. 😁

Lucky for me this hobby is not expensive at all in terms of money (because of the free internet c/o my bro and having my own almost a decade old computer [!!!] c/o my grandma) but it is time consuming. Sometimes I spend hours writing the best blog ever, well at least my version of the best blog about the topic. Haha. I write a draft then finish it in a few hrs and then get back to it after some time to edit it, and edit it and edit some more until I think it is perfect and wonderful and good enough for all the world to see.

Unfortunately I don't use Grammarly. That can be a hindrance to professional writing maybe but if I use that then I would feel it's not a hobby anymore but a job. 😂 So if someone will ask me to write them something professionally (wink wink) of course I will use such grammar tools so they get more out of what they paid for. 👍 (Even not-so-professional writing jobs is fine with me too.)

I submitted an essay or two to a local newspaper when I graduated from high school, unfortunately none of them made it to publication. I also tried submitting a short story to a magazine contest once but it never got chosen. The only thing that made it to the public limelight and got featured in any publication was my random comics that I submitted to the then popular Culture Crash comic magazine. Not a full feature like a run in it but at least they reviewed my work and found it good enough. See below.

Never tried to submit an article to any online writing site though. Most of them prefer you contribute for free for the usual "exposure" to their thousands of readers. Phoooey. So no I didn't go that route. I know some people are okay with it but I am not in that mindset yet. I plan on doing it soon but not yet. Oh no not yet.

Anyway, what do I use when writing blogs or articles? Here's a list!

1 Search engines

Yes, I use this in order to find sources of my ideas. We never had any encyclopedia except dictionaries, so having a computer and smartphone and the internet really makes it easier these days to find information on anything.

People want sources and would appreciate it more if what you say comes from an expert so I find the best ones out there to link to or include as my source.

I only use Google and DuckDuckGo for all my online research.

2 Free image sites

Of course a wonderful blog or article will not be as enjoyable without any images in it. To find the appropriate photos for my writings, I use Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons if I don't have any photo of my own.

Say hello to my trusty old laftaf with Pixabay on it.

I am thinking of contributing to this site too but just haven't gotten to doing it yet. Haha. Wait until I get to it. 😄 Oh wait, I did try once to contribute to Wikimedia, but it is as complicated as Steemit so I haven't fixed that one photo entry I submitted until now. I previously posted about it when I was new here so if anyone can help me with it, I'd appreciate it so much.

Or maybe I just need to submit it on a computer instead of my phone? Uhmmm. So yeah maybe I need to read more on it soon too.

3 Keywords/SEO online tools

If I want better article tags, I use SEO tools to find the best one to use. When I was starting out in Bitlanders @pinay suggested I use Ubersuggest.io and so sometimes when I want to use the best tags, I use that tool or another free online keywording tool I find.

4 Plagiarism checker websites

And of course this is one thing one should not forget to use especially if you have written something and want to write a similar article for another site. Better see if anything has been previously written like what you wrote or are planning to post online to make sure you create original content anywhere you want to post to.

5 Random writing/earning sites

Of course what better way to enjoy writing than to join writing websites where you can post away your thoughts right? And so aside from Bitlanders and Steemit, I also occasionally post stuff on myLot to earn some extra moolah. I got some online friends from there who's here too. :D

I used to answer questions on Yahoo! answers too and have a blast whenever I get several Best Answers. Hey it didn't earn me anything but I had fun answering people's questions and helping them out. ❤

So that's it for my hobby! What about you? What's your hobby? 😉

You can join @anomadsoul's contest too, read the mechanics and write about your favorite hobby like I did!

XOXO,
@artgirl

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