How Blogging Changed My Life

Not too long ago, Rachel from Parajunkie, one of my favorite book blogs out there- and super helpful for fellow book bloggers, did a post about how blogging changed her life. Today I want to share how it has changed mine as well.

1) Blogging gave me something for myself.
One of the major reasons I established The Ink Puddle was because Cory, our editor and my boyfriend, was moving to second shift with his job/ promotion. I needed something to fill my time, a hobby. And little did I know when I started this that it would become so much more than that.

2) Connecting.
Another one of my favorite things about blogging is the opportunity you get to communicate with the authors and people behind the stories. I get the chance to e-mail these people and interview, ask them to do guest blogs and even sometimes become friends. I get to watch indie authors grow from their first self-published book to hopefully someday being published. And I get to celebrate their achievements with them every step of the way.

3) A way to share my exciting book finds with people who read similiar things.
Many friends of mine don't necessarily read the same books as me. So blogging gave me a community of people who I can ramble on and on about how awesome the book I'm reading is and they totally get it, because they read it or they're reading it as well.

4) Accomplishment.
It's so exciting to know that I'm writing something that people want to read and that really helps them out. So much so that I've even changed what I'm going to college for to a double major: Elementary Education and English with a focus in writing.

5.) By decreasing my fear of failure. Expanding my comfort zone and pushing me.
Let's face it, when you start a blog, you don't know if it's actually going to go anywhere. All you can do is try and network and post everyday and keep your fingers crossed that you come in contact with other people as passionate as your topic as you are. You learn when something works and something doesn't, and when something doesn't work, you change things up a bit.

These are the ways that blogging has changed my life (in no particular order).
What has blogging done for you?