Good morning & welcome to our latest instalment of our Wise Words Wednesday feature. Today we are welcoming the lovely Gemma who is a fairly new blogger who blogs over at Waist Trainer, covering a wide range of subjects.
I love how blogging can give people that sense of achieving something but also a way to let out their creativness too.
Time to hand it over to Gemma for her to share her blogging journey.
Tell us a little bit about you and your blog
I’m Gemma and I’m a mum of two, a boy of five and a girl of two. I live on the South Coast so have the best of both worlds, the sea on one side and the South Downs on the other. My blog has multiple sections – health, diet and fitness plus product reviews and advice. It also features Mummy’s Waisted, which is supposed to be about me regaining my wedding day waist size, but it’s kind of gone off the rails lately!
What inspired you to start blogging?
I’ve had a complete career change in the last year, moving from 15+ years of accountancy into internet marketing. I started off writing content for my site www.waisttrainer.uk and found that my brain started buzzing with so many things that I wanted to write about (mainly my family!). Once I’d written my first post, there was no stopping me really!
What has been your highlight of blogging?
The reaction from friends and acquaintances to my writing. It’s not something that I ever thought I’d be good at, so to be praised for it is amazing (no one ever gets praised for their accountancy skills!)
Is there anything you have learnt about blogging which you wish you knew when you started out?
Keeping it simple! I often think of something I want to talk about, start writing and then go off down multiple garden paths in the same post. I need to plan out my posts a bit beforehand to keep them to one thought or topic. Otherwise I’ll use up my ideas too quickly!
Bloggers sometimes get a lot of stick however many work really hard and are reaping the rewards, what has been the most rewarding part of blogging for you?
Interacting with my children in new ways – whether it’s testing out new recipes or building dinosaurs out of egg boxes, I’ve got a new-found confidence of trying something different. Even though most of the time we get messy, and it doesn’t turn out exactly as what I have pictured in my head, it’s real quality time spent with them.
What would be your one tip you would give to new bloggers starting out?
Research into the amount of bloggers already in your niche. I was completely unaware of quite how many other parenting bloggers are out there, mostly much more world wise than me. I quickly concluded that I would be blogging just for fun for a long time, and that I wouldn’t be the next mummy blog superstar overnight!
Who do you find inspiring to read/watch in the blogging world?
At the moment it’s Aby Moore (www.youbabymemummy.com), as she has lots of really helpful advice for newbie bloggers. Also, The Unmumsy Mum who was the first parenting blogger I read when I had my son, and made me feel a lot more relaxed about parenting fails!
Do you have any big plans/dreams for your blog in the next 12 months?
I would like to grow the Mummy’s Waisted side of things, particularly the Little Chompers series – where I test out celebrity recipes to see if I can actually make them at home, and most importantly, whether my kids will eat them! I also want to start a series featuring mums who have ‘normal’ jobs but also an extra side-line, whether it’s selling cosmetics or making cupcakes.
You can follow Gemma on her blog or over on Twitter @mummys_waisted or on Facebook.
