Now that it’s been two years since I created this blog, where do I go from here?

Looking back, it’s interesting to see how things played out.  When I first started out in 2006, I blogged under the assumption that I would be eventually be attending law school later that fall.  I thought the name “Habitation of Justice” was a suitable name then, and the blog would have basically been a chronicle of my adventures in law school, as well as my subsequent journey into the legal profession.  Since I was so focused on getting everything in place so I’d be ready in time for school, I rarely posted for the first year.

Eventually though I had to defer my enrollment when my hopes for a scholarship fell through.  The deferment lasted a year, but nothing had really changed by the time it ended, so I had no choice but to withdraw.  I made one more try by attempting to go to school part-time at a local university instead, but eventually those plans fell through as well.

When it seemed like my whole future had collapsed, I eventually became fixated on making money off my blog, and spent the rest of 2007 working towards that end.  I devoured everything I could find about making money online, getting more and more frustrated because most of what I read were actually tips that I had already read off dozens of other sites, so I ended up reading the same fricking material over and over again.  Yet this was an idea I wanted to work so bad because I hated my job, and the allure of being able to live off the Internet was a really strong one.  2007 was all about establishing my blogging identity and doing whatever I could to bring in the traffic I needed so I could turn my blog into a money making machine.

That of course also met with miserable failure.  I had a huge identity crisis to deal with in that I just didn’t know what my blog should be about, and I knew I had to find a niche I was passionate about but still could make good money in.  I dabbled in doing paid reviews and other gimmicks here and there, but nothing really met with success.   All I could do was burn with envy at those who had become wildly successful with their own blogs, and nothing I could do could even remotely come near to their level of success.  The kicker was reading about a 19 year old weenie punk of a teenager who was raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month by running fake review sites containing hidden affiliate links.  They seemed to make money without even trying, and they did it with impunity.

Eventually I just gave up.  2008 began with me resigning myself to the fact that I would never get anywhere in life, much less with my blog.  I had no skills, no talent, nothing I could offer that could make this whole endeavor worthwhile.  The initial hope I had during the beginning of the year quickly dissipated as my health started to deteriorate, and I sunk even lower in despair and loneliness, fearing that I would forever be trapped in a dead end job and a dead end life.

But then somewhere along the way, in the midst of all that self-pity and despair, hope once again began to spring eternal.  The more I thought about law school, the more I began to believe God was doing me a favor.  I was happy enough to accept that such was His will, but what I was NOT happy about was being strung along for over a year when I kept asking and begging for confirmation that I was going down the right path.  Yet when I think about it, maybe it took so long to get an answer because I was meant to learn something in all that, and who knows what kind of chain of events that whole experience set off too, which I may not ever truly realize the depths of until later on in life.  They say sometimes the journey itself is more important than the destination, and I think that wise proverb applies here as well.

I also started to realize that part of the reason I had such an identity crisis was because I was trying to mimic other people’s lives (and subsequently the successes they enjoyed.)  I was trying to fit the square peg that I was into the circle of life, and as long as I continued to do that I’d never be able to move forward.  When I finally began to accept that my life was being defined by a complete different set of standards apart from the world’s own, I started to feel much better.  And my blog at long last began to take coherent shape.  My journal here is ultimately, a personal one, a catalog of both my physical and spiritual journey through life.  And that is probably what it will always be.

It also occurred to me that the driving force of my personality was my humor.  It was both sardonic and sententious, expressing an outright disdain of life’s petty silliness and the world’s stupidity, especially those of Christians who should know better.  Laced in sarcasm and saltiness, my voice was a fire breathing one, crying out in the wilderness that is the Internet, and because of it I would alienate all, and yet somehow, I would also allure all.  My life was nothing else, if not a paradox.  Here the laws of physics come to an end, and the laws that only God can control begin to take hold.

I still dream of a life of self sufficiency, where I no longer have to be tied down to one place, but can travel freely and live freely, (writing about these experiences on my blog of course), and doing those things that never would have been possible had I had a wife, a family, and a house that surely would have kept me chained down with obligations I doubt I could ever fulfill.

That’s why I feel the road calling out to me.  It beckons, with its hidden dangers (as well as hidden promises.)  There may soon come a day when I will don my leather jacket, and ride my Black Stallion to wherever that highway takes me, hoping to find that spiritual and physical dwelling where true justice reigns supreme.

The Habitation of Justice.  

Hmmmmm….

A few things happened that I wanted to write about, but some of it was pretty sensitive stuff that made the news (like a guy croaking under my agency’s watch. Oopsie! Glad I wasn’t around for that). Then there was some juicy drama that involved a psycho-nutso forum I used to belong to, but I didn’t want to rehash events that would take way too long to explain to my readers, so that’s out too. Hmmm, what to write about, what to write, what to write… …well I heard Britney lost of custody of her kids recently. That’s something right?

Crap.

Romance Tracker recently grabbed my attention with their list of three simple ways you can use your blog to get a date:

Hey, being addicted to blogging is a lot like being in love, which we’ve covered on Romance Tracker before. But regardless of how great a relationship you have with your blog, it will never hold your hand or snuggle with you at night . . . and while you could try kissing your computer screen if you want, we sure don’t recommend it.

NOW you tell me? *sigh*

Anyway, the three suggestions were 1) using the blog to meet other people interested in my niche, 2) improving my communication skills by interacting with my readers, and 3) monetizing my blog so I could buy the lovely dinner.

I actually made enough now to accomplish #3… assuming we go to McDonalds that is… but what’s ironic about this whole thing is that when I first started blogging, I did it almost solely for the purpose of finding the girl of my dreams. I had hoped that by writing in the quirky manner that I did, it would draw attention to myself, and maybe one day soon some hot Christian girl would stumble across my site after doing a Google search, post a comment, and 3 months later we would be in love and planning a wedding in Bora Bora.

What I’ve learned however in those sad, pitiful days, was that such magic only happened to other people. Cuz you know what? One day a hot, Christian girl DID come across my site after doing a Google search, and just like I hoped, she began commenting and regularly following my blog too.

So what happens? She meets the man of her dreams through HER blog, and the two get married and run off to live happily ever after.

I’m not bitter about it though. Being the strong, brave man that I am, I was able to easily recover and move on from that heart wrenching devastation… especially after I started spreading rumors around the web saying her husband was gay and was secretly having an affair with a Latin lover named Juan San Pablo. After seeing that marriage subsequently go down in flames, I finally started to feel better about myself again.

This second go around is proving to be a more daunting task for me though. For one, I still don’t know what my niche really is or should be, and two, all the readers on my blog seem to be either male or married. Really, why would I want to interact with you people? Get the @#$% off my blog and find me some girls for crying out loud. I mean if you’re gonna stick around, then make yourself useful for pete’s sake.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

After a little over a year of this blog being online, I have finally reached my 200th post!

I have to admit that’s kind of sad. After a year’s time I should have had twice as many posts by now, and if I had stuck with posting at least one entry a day, my traffic would be ten times what it is now. Maybe.

Oh well, the good news is that when it comes to blogging, it’s all about endurance, and I just have to keep at it, even if I still don’t know what the heck this blog should be about. I went from thinking this blog would be based on my experiences in law school (and ultimately the legal field), only to end up griping about how online dating bites the big one, and how my health problems has been sucking out the life out of me, and how I think God is to blame for every little thing that has ever gone wrong in my life since I came out of the womb.

Still, I’m beginning to see the value in posting at least one entry a day. It’s helping me find my rhythm, and as the writing continues to flow I think I’ll eventually find my muse as well. It’s just a matter of time. Meanwhile my more frequent posting has already had an impact on traffic. I seem to be ranking highly in Google again, and as a result more people are coming from the search results they’re finding there.

I’m reminded of the Scripture, “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.“

And I guess that’s the important thing. No matter if I haven’t found my niche yet, or how bad my writing can get at times. Just gotta keep at it… keep going… let nothing break my stride, and just keep on movin’…

A guest blogger at JohnChow.com challenged the audience in commiting to writing at least one blogging post a day for 20 days. Apparently if you make something a part of your daily routine for about three weeks, it will eventually become a habit and thus a routine that will be easier to stick to.

I decided to answer the challenge as well, since one of the big problems I’ve had in getting this blog going was my history of erratic posting frequency. I have to admit I was actually afraid to link to Chow’s blog because he’s currently in the Google doghouse for engaging in controversial link building. I thought if Google saw that I linked to his site, they would think that I was another evil fan of his and then blacklist me from their search index for all eternity, forever doomed to the dark pits of internet obscurity.

I think I worry too much.

As for what’s holding me back, I think the main reason is TIME. I’m spending a lot of time working at my job, catching up on my news feeds, tweaking my site, reading up on affiliate marketing, learning about microstock photography, gaming, watching TV, staring into empty space, just about everything EXCEPT blogging. I make no time for it at all, and it shows.

There’s another reason for this though: I have nothing to write about. Well nothing that I think will at least interest anybody. I think my writing sucks monkey’s balls too. No matter how good an idea I have for a blogging post, it never seems to translate well on “paper.” Somewhere in the blogging process things get jammed up and the end result is mindless crap. Maybe as I attempt to blog more often things will get better. Maybe not.

Maybe I need a life. Maybe I need a woman too.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Habitation of Justice. I should say something profound, so here it is:

The chocolate moose is not in season.

If you can figure that out, let me know. On a more serious note, as far as blogs go, this has been a pretty quiet year for me. There were times when I literally would get only one visitor a day, and sometimes I’d let weeks go by before blogging another post. I had been focused on other things, (like going to law school), but as soon as it became clear that my life wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon, I started to pay more attention to my blog. The last few months were all about promoting my site and optimizing it for search engines so I could bring in more traffic. Now I’m getting upwards of about 100 visits a day, which is still nowhere close to my goal, but at least it’s much better than what it used to be.

Sooooo, now that it’s been a year, where do I go from here? What direction should I take this blog in? Ever since my law school dream bombed out, I’ve been entertaining fantasies on how I could make a living out of blogging instead, quitting my dead end job and hitting the road, living the life of a nomad as I moved from place to place, finding ways to help people I encountered in my travels, and experiencing exciting new adventures that would endlessly provide great writing fodder for my blog.

Could it happen? Not unless I can find a way to monetize my blog so that it brings in a full time income, a feat that only one half of one percent of all bloggers on the Internet have been able to accomplish. And usually those types of blogs have the kind of niches where they tell everyone else how THEY can make money off their sites. Either that, or it’s rife with affiliate marketing and other business related themes that I simply can’t get into. I just don’t have the mentality for it. I can only tell a story, and telling stories through this particularly venue has not proven to be an especially profitable one for most people.

But…. it’s all I got. After racking my brain trying to come up with a niche suitable for me, I decided that it had to be something that I could always love doing, rather than delving into a niche only because it might prove to be more of a money maker. I loved to write, but not about products and marketing and technology and business and whatnot, but about life in general. About what’s real. About my deepest emotions, hopes, and despairs. About my life experiences, and how readers could relate to it. But I realized in order to blog about life, I had to first HAVE a life.

So I guess that’s what will define my second year: finding a life worthy of blogging about, and telling a story that could immerse the reader in my riveting world. Well… at least as riveting as I can possibly make it.

Only time will tell if this will be my breakout year (both online and offline), and whether I’ll be able to generate the kind of readership that I’ve been looking for.

So stay tuned, it’s going to get very interesting from here on out.