Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly series by The Broke and The Bookish. Usually they’re more book-related, but this week’s theme is top ten blogging confessions. When I saw posts from both Gene’O and Diana, I decided I couldn’t help but participate.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 blogging confessions.

1. I started this blog on a complete whim, and I definitely didn’t expect to last this long. My blog’s 6-month anniversary is on Saturday, which blows my mind.

2. Starting blogging wasn’t very premeditated, but choosing WordPress was deliberate. I’ve used Blogspot in the past, but I learned how to use WP from one of my classes at college and liked it much better. If I hadn’t taken that class I might not be here now.

3. I didn’t design my header image. In the early days of my blog (ha, as if I’m no longer in the early days), I paid a graphic designer to make it for me via Fiverr.com. It was honestly one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. Sometimes outsourcing work to well-deserving people who know what they’re doing is worth it.

4. I will forever feel overwhelmed when people ask me to summarize what my blog is about. Victim To Charm doesn’t have a theme or a focus because it’s as varied as my thoughts and interests. While I like to start discussions about important cultural topics, some posts are just silly stories from my childhood. How am I supposed to explain what I write about in a sentence? 

5. There’s a post–completely finished and something I’m proud of–hanging out in my drafts, but I keep saving it for a rainy day even though I know I should publish it and push myself to write more drafts to save for later.

6. I don’t mind bearing my soul to strangers on the Internet, but if a post is too personal I won’t link it to my blog’s Facebook page, where most of the likes come from people I know in real life. I know anyone can access those pieces regardless of whether I cross-promote them, but if a casual friend cares enough to dig up the more personal stuff, then I think they’ve earned the right to read it.

7. I periodically set goals for my blog, some of which I write down and others I just internalize. These goals are things that I can control, like bringing in a guest blogger, rather than ones I can’t, like how many followers I can gain in a certain number of days.

8. If you looked at my blog’s fairly sparse Twitter account, you’d think I don’t like Twitter, but you’d be wrong. I tweet a TON from my personal Twitter, but trying to manage two accounts (especially when one has a focus–again, I don’t do well with themes) is too much for me. I do some curating though: I share my own links and occasionally material that I love from others bloggers that I think is worth endorsing publicly.

9. When I first started blogging, I knew I’d be writing a fair amount. But I also expected to incorporate a lot of my photography (and, frankly, to rekindle my love of taking photos). My travel photos are all original, but they’re taken on my iPhone and didn’t involve a lot of thought about technique. Yesterday I got the opportunity to shoot, though, so expect some photos in the near future.

10. I will always respond to every comment. If I don’t type a response to your comment, I’ll at least “like” it to let you know I’ve seen it and appreciate it. If you take the time to write to me, you deserve my time to write back to you. I LOVE discussions in the comments, it’s my favorite way to create blogging buddies.

Bonus confession: I’m grateful to anyone who has ever read anything on my blog, but a special shout out goes to the handful of people who regularly comment on my posts or chat with me on Twitter. You know who you are!