My History As A Writer & What's Next?

Last year I shared 13 lessons I've learned as a blogger of 13 years, but now in year 14 I realize it started way before 2010.

Let's take a journey down memory lane, focusing of my life as a writer and how this has been a growing need in me all along.

I’ve mentioned the origin of my original 2010 blog multiple times. The quick summary is I became obsessed with beauty gurus and made a beauty YouTube channel. After some time, I realized I had much more to say and I started my blog to accompany it. End of story.

Except, not really.

The first time I remember writing down a story was in elementary school. I had a dream about a prince on a pegasus, so I got a notebook, and started scribbling all of it down. After this, the next time I wrote a story was years later, also in elementary, where I wrote a short story about a girl in high school that fell for a vampire.

Clearly, I was ahead of my time.

But overall, I wrote poetry for most of my life. Those random stories were one-offs. You can read more about my journey to publishing in a previous post, including how my debut publication was actually a poem about love being a garden.

But back to blogging. Do you remember Livejournal? Were you around for that experience?

I made my first blog when I was a freshman in high school, circa 2005. Little 15-year-old me felt very dramatic and "misunderstood." I just wanted to be seen as special. The usual for a teenager.

Social media wasn’t big yet (I didn’t know anything about Facebook, though it was a year old at the time), so I created a LiveJournal.

On my LiveJournal, I would say absolutely anything and everything that came to my mind. Even the more profane things like how awkward it was when my Mom had “the talk” with me when I started dating Chris (my now husband). Nothing was off limits. I didn’t understand yet that content on the internet could potentially live on forever. I deleted this online journal after a few months.

Then, I created a different LiveJournal. One that I "kept a secret." Sort of. I liked the idea of my thoughts being out in the open, so I didn’t make my journal private. Instead I followed all of my friends journals but I didn’t tell them it was me. That didn’t work for long because, of course, they figured out it was me. I deleted that blog too.

Now onto my third LiveJournal blog in three years. This one actually still exists (I wouldn’t dare post the URL now). I do read it every so often to remember how far I’ve come. I used that blog on and off for three years. This time though, I didn’t follow my friends, in fact I didn't follow anyone. It was a literal online journal.

Later, I wanted a proper blog. I had started following Really, Are You Serious? in 2009 and really liked the idea of sharing my thoughts with the world and making a career out of it. This time I wanted to share my thoughts on music, art, really anything I felt like. Thus, Miss Random Bliss was born. Krystyn from RAYS actually designed my blog too. I eventually set that blogspot blog to private. I wonder if I can get back into that account...

The idea for the name was the concept that I would follow my bliss, without niching down. Sound familiar? I'm horrible at niching, it just wasn't meant for me.

Then, we enter my fifth blogging era, rebeccakelsey.com. Someone owns that URL now, which drives me insane since they aren't using it. I had this blog from 2010-2018, but didn't continue to pay for it when I moved to rebeccaksampson.com, which I regret.

Despite being my fifth blog, it wasn't my fifth site. I've had many short lived poetry and photography websites, that I created and closed in college. I became addicted to creating my own spaces, apparently. In a moment, you'll see that habit has continued.

I've always prioritized exploring and sharing my passions and that love has taught me so much about technology, blog formats and platforms, and marketing. Marketing and social media ended up becoming my full-time job, so it's all helped me get to where I was meant to be.

This was the last design from that blog, which I had self-hosted on Wordpress:

I did really love that blog and design, and saved a lot of those posts so I could reshare them in the future after I left. The one in the preview was eventually reshared: How I Kept My Pregnancy a Secret.

Around the time I was pregnant, I was also paid as a freelance blog writer. I wrote hundreds of posts for other publications, both anonymously and as myself, from 2015-2018ish. It was how I supplemented my income until I got into publishing, helping cover what we needed as a growing family while I worked in more entry-level jobs.

Freelancing is something I still dable in, but in a more picky way. When I first freelanced, it was for survival. I have the privilege of not needing to accept each job now that I'm more established in my career.

I have very few regrets, but I do regret leaving the rebeccakelsey URL behind when I left. I still think it was a good idea to leave Wordpress, because that platform stressed me out, but I wish I had gone through the trouble to keep that link.

We are getting closer to present day...

Now we've made it to sixth era - rebeccaksampson.com - hosted on Wix. I initially had a very confusing design where I said I was the Creator of Worlds (and Babies).

Sounds kind of gross now, looking back on it.

But now a few years later, the site is cuter, don't you think?

Cartoon Rebecca was created by @sennydoesarty.

Yet, I didn't stop there. While I maintain this blog, I also have two other author websites. View each here: R. K. Sampson | Rachel H. Drake

One of the side effects of having three pen names and a publishing company, it seems, is needing a significant online presence.

What's Next?

I don't know, but I'm still here. My topics change, ideas change, career evolves, but I know one thing has remained. I'm a writer.

And that's a beautiful thing to have as my constant.

I briefly wrote here and on Substack, but have come back, bringing in that content that was published elsewhere. Maybe one day I'll move again! I'm no stranger to changing my mind.

The only constant is change. And that's one thing I'm not afraid of.

Remember, you are unstoppable,

Rebecca