my life is changing // hello October.

Mark Anthony2 Comments

So we’re a little busy dizzy lately as college approached me. Trust me when I tell you, I only snapped a couple of minutes to write this blog post, for I have a lot of “schedules” kinda. And honestly, I can’t be more a little shocked with all the changes going on.
2020 seems to be slipping away quite that fast. And I can’t believe It’s October and Christmas is so so soon again.
If we have fall season in the Philippines, I’m probably doing all things cozy, capturing all things Autumn – and my Instagram palette would be Yellow, Orange, to Red, with little touches of Brown.
Well, I love Instagram y’all know that. Right?

I am not in any way bothered with all the stuffs going on, I am just a little like thinking of ways I can balance every single thing. I made it a promise to myself that I will never ever quit or give up blogging. However though, Finding time for me to effort making post or doing all these graphics is a little difficult.
I want to give nothing, but all my best when it comes to the blog.
I kinda don’t care about Traffic at all, I just wanna enjoy this blogging thing in a kinda diaristic manner where I get to share my life, my writings, my ideas and all that. God! This is all I ever wanted and it’s in my hands. How could I not be any more grateful?

So, just a reminder that everything that I say right now, are all random and impromptu because the idea of giving an update seeped through my mind all of sudden. I pulled my phone and began typing.

Just so y’all know, I’m 18 now so life’s a little extra making me feel conscious. And it’s all weird because I don’t feel grown-up, but I love it.
As soon as I entered college, I am acquainting with new lovely Filipino people. And it feels awesome to make batch of new circles. But you know me, right? I am good at keeping boundaries. In my opinion, that’s a healthy choice and that is good for me.

I am coming at this stage where I feel like I can’t just keep up and balance everything all at once. There are things I have to let go and stop holding into.
I think, coming at this realization root when you feel like you can’t consistently do all things which makes you happy anymore.
If I’m being honest, I am a journal keeper, and Trust me – I am losing time for it at all. I have two unread books, novel in progress, plans not yet made. But I still wanna hold on to them. I still want to finish that two books before buying new ones, I still want to continue the story of Blaire and Ruel, and justify why that novel is titled “Spell Eternity”. I still want to keep a journal and make private entries about my days, I still want to run Virtually Bly and this Blog.
I still want to write prose, and poems- thing which I can’t do consistently at all.

I can come at the blogosphere, and type a single “hi”, post it, and leave. But that is not something which i wanna do.
I have stock of writings, but I can’t find time to reconnect with them, and post them here. You know, life goes on, and transitions are unstoppable.
Recently, I’ve been noticing declines in my website. The followers are slowly going down, the likes are smaller now, the comments are rare. But, does that make sense?
I think, no at all. I just want this space to be mine. And whoever who’d love to read my entries is super welcome.
You know, you can still scroll through my posts, you can leave comment/s and I’ll sure read and reply them the earliest as possible.

If I have time, I’m probably making Christmas Tree and decorating them with lights. I love them, they make me feel Christmas even more. I so so love that feeling, trust me. Well, comment down if you do too. We’ll be super close friends.
I mean, I can make time If I want to, but I have my priorities at the moment.

How’s your October going so far? Also noticing some sort of changes in your life lately? What are the things you miss? (just literally, anything)

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Empty Months

Mark Anthony2 Comments

It’s always raining here again, I made myself a cup of coffee in the morning – like what I always do.
And sitting here, I stare blindly outside. I don’t know, perhaps I miss the Sun, or the feeling of waking up to that warm weather. But I hate Summer.

I slept around 11:00 last night. I’ve been trying to write something poetic, something to ease my thirst for solace.
And sitting here, my coffee tastes different.

Thinking about it all, the past months which passed without any thought of you, they were the moments I felt empty.
And Now, I wonder about the weather in your town. I’ve always been wondrous about the differences that we have.
I wonder if you’re awakened now.

But it’s just true. Even if I’d keep on chasing the strong feeling I once had for you, nothing good will begin.

And during the past months when I felt empty, those were also my best.

Blogging Mistakes You’re Probably Doing

Mark Anthony6 Comments

Everything that we do is learned via Trial and error.

Today, the internet is already a crowded place filled with different kinds of website. Lifestyle, Beauty, art blogs, writing or article blogs, book blogs, entertainment, your blog, and more. Blogs may be big and successful, or small. And creating and making contents for blog can be a little confusing, and sometimes we don’t know that there are mistakes that we still do.

If you’re a content creator in the internet, specifically a Blogger, and is still confuse about this blogging thing, just keep reading this post. This is for you!

The common blogging mistakes you probably are doing:

* 📌 pin it *

° Putting too Colorful Website Design

– if you read successful blogs, you can notice that they are minimalist in designing. That is because they want to focus more on content, rather than aesthetics.
Putting colorful web designs result to a less pleasing ambiance. It is because the design will outshine the content. Strong colors can get painful in the eyes, and the readers can become a little less interested with your posts.
However, it doesn’t mean that all you have to put on your blog is white color. You can still use add some touch of light colors to make it still alive.

° Using hard-to-read Fonts

-Same with design, your fonts should also be simple yet elegant. Excessively-designed fonts can get readers confused with what they read, it will only waste your content.
Even if you wrote a long, and supposed to be helpful post, if people can’t understand what you wrote, they’re gonna stop reading.
So use simple calligraphic fonts yet elegant.

° Not Using Stock Photos for Graphics/Featured Images

– I think, we all miss the point of using stock photos. So first, what is stock photos?
Stock photos are free-to-use photos from websites offering them to bloggers. When you use such, your posts are legal.
But if you won’t, and you’ll just settle to photos you get on social media or just basically anywhere, you do mistake. You, without an intent, disrespect the photographer who should be credited. Unless you put credits at the bottom section of your blog posts.
I’m not going to hide the truth though- in my old posts, I’ve never used stock photos. I just used the ones I got from Pinterest. Which was, I admit, wrong.
If you want to change your ways, you can quickly search websites on google giving free photos to everyone who needs it.

° Not Doing Content Analysis

– As a blogger, you wanna stay relevant and keep the traffic on your blog. But I think we miss the point of doing content analysis, Content analysis isn’t directly done on your blog posts, but rather to your audience. It answers the question : “do my readers love seeing posts like this from me?”. The answer can only be yes or no.
If yes, then post more type of that content. But if no, then stop because you’re not gonna gain anything good from continuing.
To do so, you can ask your readers directly, through posts, or through email.

° Not Posting Regularly

– The word regularly doesn’t mean everday.
The way to drive traffic on your blog is not by schedule, but by consistency.
Make sure that you Don’t idle your site for 2-3 weeks, or for month, or months, to the point that your audience doesn’t anymore know when to get something new from you. It’s important that you avoid long inactivity when you’re a blogger. Posting every week can help. By doing that, your readers will regularly be fed with fresh content.

° Not Interacting with Other Bloggers/Readers

– The best action mvp bloggers do is interacting with other bloggers, or readers. Ignoring commentators is a big mistake some successful bloggers are most likely to do, I notice that some of them leave comments lying without giving any replies, and I find that rude.

When you interact, people get more interested to always consume your content, because they know that they are reading the right content from a responsive person.

° Putting so Many Advertisement

– if you doesn’t know, you can actually make money from your blog (but only if you have a custom domain), monetizing is something I plan to do someday.
But with monetizing, comes the disadvantage that you get advertisements on your web. And visitors hate it.
I personally recommend, that you don’t put too many advertisements on your site, because as an internet reader, I don’t like it when there are too many google ad popping as I read.
Readers tend to lose interest to read on your blog when there are too many extras they see, so monetize moderately.

Specifically, the dos in blogging are:

1. Be a minimalist designer
2. Use simple yet attractive fonts
3. Use stock photos for your graphics/featured images
4. Analyze what type of content your readers engage the most on
5. Be consistent, and don’t put your blog on long hiatus
6. Interact with other blogs. Like posts, comment, share
7. Don’t everdo monetization

What are the blogging mistakes which you never knew you were doing? What website do you use for getting stock photos? Are you a minimalist blog designer?

Comment down and let’s fix some of our blogging mistakes 📝

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