You might not hassle with resolutions for the brand new yr, however setting objectives in your weblog lets you (re)focus and form your on-line residence. We requested a various mixture of bloggers:
What’s an important objective you will have in your website in 2016?
Lisa Jakub, lisajakub.net
My decision could be very easy and never really easy: I need to create work that tells the reality. Writing, for me, is all about connection, and nothing creates connection like open-hearted honesty. It’s about placing letters and areas collectively in a approach that reaches out and permits all of us to really feel much less alone. It’s about discovering our commonalities and celebrating our particular person authenticity. And if we will chuckle about it within the course of — even higher.
Emily J. Petersen, The Bookshelf of Emily J.
My objective for my weblog in 2016 is to re-personalize it! I began out by writing about my reminiscences and experiences as they related with books, and I’ve gotten away from that. I’m engaged on a PhD and ending my dissertation this yr, so I’ve develop into preoccupied. My e-book critiques are typically simply that: guide evaluations. I feel what made my weblog particular at first have been the tales I informed about my life as they associated to books.
So in 2016, I plan to make my posts extra private, extra partaking, and extra honest. I learn a number of books, however I’d somewhat write about my private response or connection to a e-book than repeat the plot line. I feel this personalization will assist me to reconnect with my loyal readers and to seek out new ones. I really like the group features of running a blog, so I hope to reinsert myself there by sharing who I’m and opening up extra.
Sam Nathapong, Sam in Bangkok
Sam Nathapong needs to share your tales of Bangkok.
I’m keen on free speech in 2016. Bangkok, Thailand, has been underneath the army authorities for greater than a yr, because the Might 2014 coup. The army junta has created a local weather of worry amongst us, from small bloggers to journalists and teachers everywhere in the nation.
My weblog is small, so I’m not making an attempt to be all Katniss Everdeen about it — and Bangkok is excess of what’s described as The Starvation Video games’ District 12. On Twitter, it feels particularly tense for these of us writing within the English language from Thailand. However with this international language, I need to attain extra individuals and allow them to know that there are nonetheless causes to smile beneath such circumstances — and to inform my very own a part of this story.
Bangkok continues to be wealthy in tradition, and we have now so many guests annually. I consider that everybody has their very own distinctive Bangkok story inside them, and my objective is to succeed in out to those individuals. My door is open if they have a story to tell.
In 2016, I would like Sam in Bangkok to be a weblog the place we can share and uncover tales about Bangkok — freely.
Summer time Pierre, Paper Pencil Life
New for 2016: an internet comics course from Summer Pierre.
I’ve all the time been a conflicted blogger, feeling barely apologetic for retaining what can appear an indulgently private venture in a public discussion board. But after this yr of feeling extra related than ever to a rising viewers, resulting from telling my imperfect and private tales, it hit me: Who am I kidding? I really like my weblog. If it weren’t for my weblog I might have by no means tried half of what I’ve accomplished. It’s each my lab and my studio, and though I may need made comics and written essays with out it, I doubt I’d ever have felt as related to individuals on such a constant private degree by way of my work.
With out my weblog, I might by no means have provide you with my newest endeavor: teaching an online class on comics in the New Year. The category is a direct extension of every thing I’ve made on my weblog and seems like a pure development as an artist on WordPress. I really feel extra excited than ever to proceed to inform my very own story via phrases and footage, and to increase the attain by serving to others inform their very own. What might be higher?
Russell Jackson, Draw the Public
Weblog resolutions for 2016, by Russell Jackson at Draw the Public.
Samara Speaks, A Buick in the Land of Lexus
In 2016, I want to parlay my weblog right into a profitable freestyle rap profession and share my rhythmic knowledge throughout the globe. Sadly, I’ve zero rapping expertise. Can I modify my reply?
For 2016, I want to truly HAVE objectives. For 2 years I’ve flown by the seat of my pants. (What does that even MEAN? Sounds painful.)
The grown-up bloggers set objectives. They use editorial calendars and weblog organizers. Weblog organizers? I can’t even discover a clear bra. Examine my Google Analytics? I get misplaced at Walmart.
I’m fairly clever, however weblog tech jargon makes me hyperventilate. Somebody says, “decide a distinct segment to develop your general search engine marketing technique.” I hear, “Blerghity blergh blergh.”
Do you know Pinterest can be utilized to drive visitors to your weblog? Have you learnt what customized CSS is? Bounce fee? Meta tags?
Samara‘s objective is to stay goalless.
Do you know that the Amish are an actual tradition of individuals and never simply an old-timey group of actors who’re simply actually into it? Do you understand that our presidential elections are principally a nationwide rip-off and we’d be higher off electing a God of Cake?
So, for 2016, my massive aim is to SET GOALS.
Guess what? I checked with Woman Google, and solely eight % of objectives are ever met. If seven of us are answering this query, solely .56 of us are going to satisfy our objectives. Not even ONE WHOLE PERSON!
Perhaps winging it IS the best way to go. I’m not wealthy or well-known. However I have to be doing one thing proper, as a result of I’ve the good weblog household on the planet. The individuals who learn my blog make it what it’s. I don’t have to vary a factor.
So, I assume my objective is to stay goalless. I’m, in any case, a non-conformist. Identical to everybody else.
J.S. Park, jsparkblog.com
Each weblog can hit a stride, after which the strain’s on. With sufficient diligence, darkish roast, and in-brain mud-wrestling over the right click-worthy title, we will get what we all the time needed: a gentle stream of readers.
The issue is we attempt to duplicate lightning in a bottle, and we maintain too many bottles, and we stretch ourselves skinny with thunder. Both the weblog will flip into Swiss cheese, or we’ll. Or in my case, each.
For devout atheist-turned-skeptical pastor J.S. Park, running a blog in 2016 means slowing down.
I rode a wave this yr that culminated in the perfect weblog efficiency since I began 15 years in the past, with a tsunami surge of clicks over the summer time. However it got here at the price of my stressed desperation. I needed to write on every little thing. I needed to have an opinion. I needed to experience the momentum to rapture.
I knew it was dangerous once I thought, I can’t cease now. I assumed stopping meant quitting, and quitting in my Japanese Asian world is harakiri by pen.
My posts turned passive-aggressive, uneven, much less coherent and considerate. I received emails that stated, “Sounds prefer it’s been tough recently, sorry.”
Their concern broke via. I needed to relaxation.
I deal with relaxation like an annoying pause-button earlier than I get again to work, however relaxation is the dwelling precise life that makes the work make sense. I overlook to take pleasure in and cherish the downtime: which isn’t actually downtime, however actual time. I overlook to take away myself from stats and submit schedules to stay life itself, in order that I can have one thing to say in any respect. And I needed to give up superimposing these moments into social media, to only allow them to breathe with out an obligation to submit them.
Relaxation is the room to breathe.
My hope is to write less and live more. Relaxation extra and write higher. Be nonetheless within the balcony and regain perspective. It’s this area that cultivates creativity, for higher ideas, and extra thunder.
We want all of you a Comfortable New Yr — and may’t wait to see what you create in 2016.
Filed beneath: Better Blogging, Community, WordPress.com 
