I don’t have a real “blogiversary.” I mean, I do have a day that this little spot of the Internet started, but it’s a bit of a long story.
Once upon a time, I was a junior in college at Vanderbilt University and my health was worse than it is now. I wasn’t on a working arthritis treatment and everything was a mess. Going into my senior year, my advisor had a great idea. In the fall, I would take 3 classes, do my pre-student teaching 1 day a week, and do an independent study. This would decrease my stress levels and allow me to rest more, which would hopefully really help my arthritis.
This independent study was to start a blog. I would read a bunch of young adult novels that are based on or influenced by various myths and blog about them, including answering several specific questions about them. After all, I majored in secondary education and English with the intention of teaching middle or high school; it was important to understand this literature and perhaps find ways to teach myths or just get kids interested in reading.
So I started that blog – Kate Reads Myths – in June 2012, and it was a project I really enjoyed. I’ve always been a writer, and I loved having the excuse to write semi-creatively on a regular basis. And writing regularly improved my writing. Overall, I loved blogging.
I loved it so much that I wanted to do it beyond writing about YA books influenced by myths. In August, right before I went back to Tennessee for my senior year, I wrote my first post on Kate the (Almost) Great.
But, of course, my senior year was crazy. I posted less than 50 times between August 2012 and April 2013. It wasn’t the worst record, but it wasn’t the best, either, and there were not many people who read them anyway. After I graduated in May 2013, I returned to Boston for a couple of months. I had a job lined up in Nashville, but I couldn’t move down until after my infusion in July. I quickly got bored and started blogging regularly, and the rest is history.
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Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
I did the same! Started it, posted here and there, and then got busy. But after I got married and moved to a new city, I had so much free time that I needed to fill up. That led me to rediscovering how much I enjoyed blogging!