What JC Did Next – The End

I thought “What JC Did Next” posts would end with Part 8, which I wrote in early January. But I know its disappointing if there’s no happy ending to the story. The story being my life, the shitshow of the last few years. As I was typing them I was thinking yes, this is just another ‘this happened, got through it’, life story with no uplifting music whatsoever at the end. No running off into the sunset, no heroes, no lottery win.

Then I realised there can’t be an end yet. Its still ongoing, work in progress. I’m going to switch the titles around and call it Dear Diary because, well, that’s essentially what it is.

You’re not going to find anything informative or thought provoking here, nothing is going to make you say “wow”. But you might walk away thinking ‘glad I’m not her’. Selling this really well aren’t I?!

I was definitely feeling more positive and optimistic towards the end of 2019 and Part 8. People had started reading my posts and things were looking up. No idea where they are coming from, its definitely not because anyone is sharing it!

The website design was coming together, although still a work in progress, not yet there, I have much to learn! I’d done some serious heart and soul baring in the My Accident blogs which were attracting a fair few readers. Bit exciting!

And then in February I got an email from Johny, a BBC Producer I chat to on Twitter, would I be up for doing a blog for the BBC ‘My Money’ series? I replied “Would love to! But can you give me 10 minutes for the rational side of my brain to show up, haha not even joking”

10 minutes later “I’d love to! Thank you so much for thinking of me.”

He sent some examples and then the reality kicked in. What are you doing?! I’m going to get my blog link in there! But you’re telling EVERYBODY absolutely EVERYTHING! Eh? Have you read my blogs?

I did it. Finally. It really felt like homework, leaving it to the last minute. How are you getting on? He’d ask. Fine! I’d say, looking at a blank screen. It got to Thursday morning and even though I’d been making notes, nothing had made it to screen yet. Told him I’d send it to him on Sunday. Right, stop worrying, just do the whole thing on Saturday. What, hours and hours of typing?! Well you should have thought about that last Monday.

And really wish I hadn’t told (bragged to) everybody beforehand. Its so boring!

It was published a few weeks later, together with a link to My Accident posts. Wow. My website had thousands and thousands of hits. I had Google ads placed in blog posts and three days in I’d made £118. Unbelievable! So incredibly excited! Kept watching the visitor numbers go up and up…and then…0.00. Sorry, what? Profit: 0.00. Why? What’s going on?!

I’ll tell you what was going on. Google wanted to investigate the traffic to my website and specifically their ads. In the meantime, they removed them. Just like that. Gone. The first time I’d earned money in 4 years. (More on that here. Because forgot I already blogged about this!).

My site continued to get thousands of hits. The My Money article would be on their website for a week. And my website earned nothing.

An update. Even though I didn’t have Google ads for a few months they magically appeared a few weeks back. Back in the game! Only not with a constant 20k readers. But that’s okay, I can build on this. Somehow! Need some marketing and branding advice. I’m a bit all over the place and not sure who my audience is or how to find them. Might take me a while but I will get there.

My friend Pen said I should carry on with the money week format as people really enjoyed reading it. So that’s what I’m going to do. A Dear Diary with my spending and any cutting corners tips I find.

Right, time to re-pot some veg. I know, the excitement. First time I’ve ever grown anything and been a bit haphazard with it all. Luckily there’s a bloke on Frome-FM at 11am, Trug & Lettuce with some watering advice.

Lets do this. Have a good weekend! x