Welcome to my Blog in 2022!
Janice Notes 2 years Later and Why I'm Writing
Hello, long time no see! 👋
My last post was in Fall 2020. What happened? Online school, personal relationships, and working a 40 hr/week co-op. But to tell you the truth, not a day went by when I haven't thought of updating Janice Notes. Quarantine life moved quickly and I found myself doing 100 different things at once, none of them being writing (which I deeply regret). But lots of things have changed and I no longer have the monstrous writers' block that stood in the way between me and this page. I realized that blogging is thinking with myself. So I'm creating space for me and others to share my opinions and thoughts.
A few years ago, I cried for the first time while reading. The book? On Writing, by Stephen King (#thanksKing 👑) The crying was from when King described the tearjerking moment his parents passed away. But a line that really stuck with me from that book was "Read a Lot, Write a Lot". I was only slightly thinking of starting a blog at that point and I was so inspired that I printed it out and stuck it on my shelf so I would constantly be reminded by Mr.King (and it's still here to this day- see below). During quarantine, I did a lot of reading, but the second half of the quote? Not as much.
So what's changed? I no longer have a fear of perfection. I always felt like if I was going to pay $200/year for a blog site, I might as well write after 3+ hours of research and come up with the perfect punchlines. But if there's one thing I learned during quarantine, it's to simply do it. Blogging is certainly not going to pay college tuition, but I'm investing in myself, which is equally, if not more important.
Funnily enough, it wasn't until I made the risk to change my bullet journal account on Instagram to become my art account that I got used to being more myself online. At first, I was scared to do so because I had been running my bullet journal account for a year now and a part of me wanted it to stay my bullet journal account. But I had met most of the goals I wanted to accomplish through journaling and wanted to spend that time differently, and I really wanted to start sharing my art by sharing my Blender (3D art software) progress.
So may page eventually went from this,..
to this!
I realized that the change and 3D art progress felt more myself. I started sharing more parts of me as well: memes that made me laugh, honest opinions, art accounts that really inspired me. My explore page came to life with posts that made me happy. Things I was too shy to post from my bullet journal account made their debut in my newly branded account. I also felt more myself when I would come up with captions, something I believe helped me improve my writing. After sharing countless captions, posts, and later reels, I realized that I actually enjoy sharing my opinions and thoughts through writing.
What later really sold me to start writing again was when I came across a blogger's article where she reviewed clothes from a store I was considering buying from. I was less interested in the clothes she had bought and more in the way she wrote. It was so refreshingly candid— a stark contrast to the typical CNBS make-it and Wall Street articles I'm used to reading on the daily. In the day and age of Tiktok, I realized that I missed reading people's thoughts and reviews that take 3 minutes to read as opposed to 10-second clips. After that, I realized that blogging has its charms that are rarer to see in today's sensory age.
Moving forward, I'm not sure if I'm going to be writing here 7 days a week, but I can say for sure that I've become more confident in my writing and ✨freedom of expression✨, and that's all that really matters to me right now. So if you're here, I'm glad you've found my page. And I hope you get inspired or less bored by my thoughts.
- JNCE ✿
