Creative Therapy: Blogger Recognition Award

I was nominated by Paulina @ The Little Book Pixie for the Blogger Recognition Award Tag! Thanks Paulina-this was a lovely surprise and really lifted my spirits.

The Blogger Recognition Award was started by Edge of Night to celebrate bloggers and show them appreciation for their contribution to the blogging community.

It's a pay-it-forward kind of deal, so read on to discover who I've nominated and read about how I started my blog and my advice to new bloggers.

Rules

1) Select 15 other blogs you want to give this award to. Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.

2) Write a post to show off your award! Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. List who nominated you in your post. Make sure to attach the award yourself.

3) Comment on each blog and let them know you've nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.

4) Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. That way, anyone can find the original post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing.

How I started

My first blog post was on the 6th March 2009. I'd been hearing about blogs everywhere around that time and I even had a dream that I owned one. I took it as a sign that maybe I should finally start one, so I opened a Blogger account and didn't look back. At first I mainly blogged about my life, writing, arts and crafts and took part in a lot of Blogfests (I wish there were more of those around now!) but lately my blog has developed to focus more on books.

My Advice to New Bloggers

If you're just getting started I would advise you not to try too hard to write for a specific audience. Don't feel you have to rigidly stick to a theme. Write about anything and everything that interests you, even if that is an eclectic bunch of topics. Readers appreciate it when you write from the heart and not just promote things you don't care about to attract followers. Eventually you will develop your own style and you'll get to know the kind of posts that work and the ones that don't.

Also, don't compare yourself to all the large, popular blogs out there. There are people that do this for a living and earn money from sponsors or advertising and their blogs always look amazing and have a gazillion followers because they have the time and money to invest in them. Their success didn't come overnight-they worked long and hard for several years to get in that position. At first you may feel like you're talking to yourself. But it's better to have a small audience that you know actually read and comment on your posts, rather than lots that just 'like' you on social media. Your blog will grow gradually if you continue to blog regularly, don't worry.

Finally, get to know the rest of the blogging community. Sign up for blogfests, blogathons and memes and make sure you visit and comment on plenty of other blogs. You will soon gain some blogging buddies to encourage, support and inspire you on your blogging journey.

My Nominees

It was hard to choose just fifteen, because there are so many amazing blogs out there at the moment. But here are some that I've been noticing a lot lately: