Blog: Starting Out
Hello everyone,
Starting a new blog on a fresh and new page, with new goals and expectations, has been the best thing that has happened to me in literally ages! Actually, discovering blogging on its own has been the best thing that has happened to me. Meeting new like-minded people, being able to talk about things I love with passion, and reading what others have to write about their passions too, is something that I think everyone has to try out at some point in life.
Hello and welcome to my creative outlet on the internet where I share my passions and love in form of writing, Kudakwaishe. You may, or mostly may not even know about me (just one of the specks on the Internet), but anyways, welcome.
I am a sixteen year old blogger from Zimbabwe, with an uncontrollable affinity for all things creative. In 2017 I started blogging, and it was something that I did to fulfil my passion of writing and being creative. I had always known that I loved writing, but sitting down and trying to come up with something creative on paper seemed impossible and very difficult to me. I found it difficult to write creative stories, so I thought my passion was Journalism but this too was not something that really sparkled me. I remember writing my own weekly newsgazine whilst at a boarding school (it was called The Ngezi Chronicles or something like that) and I really loved it, but the thing almost eventually got me into trouble at school and knowing that everyone waited for the ‘paper’ every Monday morning (okay, maybe my friends only did wait for the hand written publication, but I can say the thing was a little bit popular among the Form 3 stream of 2017) really tired me. One thing that I knew is that I loved the publication being a one-man mission and did not enjoy having to work with other people on the writing, but I had my best friend who did the designs of the paper and everything, and another one who drew some cartoons and whatsoever, so I think that is one thing that really sparkled me to invest into blogging (I will do a complete post about The Ngezi Chronicles).
I started my first blog sometime in October of 2017 on WordPress(.com) when I moved from a boarding to a day school. To tell the truth, I had no idea what I was actually getting myself into, but the feeling of having to write on the Internet and talking about a different topic in each article sparked the creativeness in me. I had always wanted to ‘own’ my own place on the Internet, and write about the things that I was really passionate about, so I started to research more about the blogging community. WordPress really kept coming up in most researches (and so was Blogger, but most advised to go WordPress), and when I finally downloaded the WordPress app, my eager to blog was very high and before I knew it I had created my very first blog (called Live Mo Awesome ZW)
I knew nothing about blogging and how to actually write up a full complete post, but WordPress was very friendly to work around. I had no actual content, or even knew that I should publish an About Me page, but it was the beginning of a wonderful journey. Most people (especially my brother) thought that this was just a fanatic and soon I would drop up the act, and even I myself thought so too, but to my own surprise too, I just kept going and researching more and more about blogging, and little by little I started to know some basics about blogging and the online world. I remember my very first blog post, called ‘Two Shoes And A Sock Into Blogosphere’, with the inspiration of the title I got from a picture I download from Pixabay, and I got some few comments from other bloggers who were taking part in a 30 Day Blogging Challenge, and I really loved the support that was there in the community. I later knew why I wrote such a funny title, it was because I was not prepared for the amazing journey that would later become a dear part of me.
Unfortunately, the first blog did not survive for long, and later came another one called ‘Kudakwashe Now Blog’ which also did not make it that far. I can say that Kudakwashe Now was part of a long experiment that gave me the grips of blogging. Now, around nine months later I know a lot of myself, and I have discovered a part of me that if I hadn’t started a blog, I wouldn’t have known. One thing I really discovered was that I love and am happy being creative, and writing is actually a passion of mine. I also discovered that I am actually motivated to write by pretty images, and most of my post ideas come from just looking at an image and wanting to write a story about it. For that reason, I am hoping that I will someday enroll for a photography course on one of my favourite bloggers. By starting a blog, I was able to know some basics about coding. I used to convert my typed posts into HTML on WordPress and I was amazed on how all those tags actually created a post. That way, I delved myself into yet another amazing little project of mine, self-tutoring on HTML coding. Though I am in the initial stages now (and have taken a bit of a break to focus on my examinations coming pretty soon), I know some basic codes on how to create a blog post and a simple website, and it gave me the courage to even move my blog to Blogger as it allows me to be creative and work around with some codes. HTML Programming also allowed me to be on top of the Computer Science Class when we came to the topic of Web Designing, and I give all the credits to blogging.
In all, I can say my life has changed since I started blogging last year, and I am very much open to more change, growth and maturity along the way. Rather than being a Facebook fanatic and spending most of my days posting selfies and having random chats with people I believe would have had a bad influence on me, I now spend most of my online time blogging, researching on blogging topics, branding and growth, and being part of a loving community that is focused on growth, maturing and influencing, and actually making a change to their lifestyle and living a life of passion. I remember in June I had to unfollow over 2.5K people on Twitter and keep my feed clean with bloggers and influencers and left some hundred groups on Facebook (and unfriending a lot of people too) and actually deleting my Instagram because I had no time to unfollow another 2K people. I can say that since starting blogging, I stopped living a life of following the crowd, but actually invested in living a life of passion.
About The Blog
Kudakwaishe comes in as a place l share my passions and little bits of my life with everyone. Kudakwaishe is actually my second name (Hello Ashley!!), and it means "God's Plan" back in my local language. I just tweaked with the name a little bit to sound more aesthetic, and was however very proud and happy to find the domain available on Blogspot (and the web too because I am planning on going Self-Hosted pretty soon). Calling myself a 'lifestyle blogger' generally means that I will be sharing all things lifestyle and that are passionately related to me. Personally, l have an affinity for writing, travelling, aviation, social media and recently, coding.
After investing a lot of time researching about Blogging and how to start and grow a successful one, I have gained a lot of knowledge which I believe that I will be able to implement on this blog and also share a lot with others so that they too can grow their own online presence. I enjoy very much working and promoting other bloggers on my own space, so each month I will (try to) do a post collaboration with another blogger, especially a teenage blogger, and also I will share a feature post here to tell you of my favourite blogs or Instagram or posts for that particular month. I am a person with a very bad touch when it comes to making certain decisions, especially blogging (and life alike so on Kudakwaishe I am trying to be very minimal with designs and whatsoever, and focus much of my energy towards the content. Note, l am constantly trying to improve my content curation and post better and engaging content, and I did really appreciate if you give me your honest reviews on my posts.
I was not practically obsessed with blog stats and post views, but this time around I am working towards improving my blog traffic, DA scores and engagement as I am working towards my ultimate goal of actually monetizing this blog and launching my creative lifestyle online shop some time in the future when I have earned enough to do so. I had been a total failure when it came to sticking to an editorial calendar and blogging consistently. The truth being that the part of Zimbabwe l stay does not have any free Wifi so l totally depend on personal data for accessing my blog (my only blog investment), and i am not that "planner-schedule" type of guy. Though, I will try to be consistent with my posting and publish at least one amazing post a week and also try to grow my online presence with currently Twitter, and later branch out to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Bloglovin’. I have created accounts on all those social media platforms to secure my username at the moment, but am not active right now.
Mantra Of This Blog
“A Creative Life & Style Blog. My mission is to inspire, motivate and encourage other teenagers to start and grow their own blogs and online brands, and to help people live their passions too”
Thank you for reading my very own story on why I started this blog, and why you should care. I hope to gain a new friend in your by joining me on this wonderful journey and supporting me in my quest to grow my blog. You can take a look at my About Me Page and my Bucket List page.
©Kudakwaishe2018
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