anniversary – Diary of a Disabled Person.

Third Time’s The Charm.

As of January 15th 2020, Diary of a Disabled Person is officially 3 years old! The terrible two’s are finally over, & like a rarely-seen aunt I simply cannot believe how much time has passed.

The past year of blogging has, as always, seen some changes to the way I work & the content I produce. I’ve won awards, expanded my following, taken on new projects, & even started making videos!

A year ago I had 200 WordPress followers, & my website had been viewed a few thousand short of 80,000 times. A year has seen me gain over 130 new followers, & the 100,000 views mark is so much closer! Considering that I spend no money on advertising, & rely almost entirely on social media & word-of-mouth, I’d say that’s pretty substantial growth.

Last January I accepted my first award of the year, the Flawesome award, & over the course of the year I have a accrued a few more, bringing me to a grand total of eight awards. The support of other bloggers has been confidence-boosting, to the point where I launched my own award to recognise the excellence of other bloggers & content-producers out there; The Fearless Snowflake award. I hope that with this award, I can return some of the gratitude & support I have received back to a community I am proud to be a part of.

I also released my third series of short stories over the summer, which seemed to be well-received. My workload means there won’t be any more series for a while, but I hope to return to the format for specials such as the Christmas edition a few weeks ago!

I’m not only present on the internet as a blogger, & can be found on social media too! My Facebook page & linked group (@diaryofadisabledperson) has seen some growth, in particular receiving support as I connected with more people on my personal profile, including from several professional wrestlers. My Instagram (also @diaryofadisabledperson) has seen some growth too, although I limit my time on this platform due to some of the more toxic elements I have seen there (including creepy messages that I can only presume have never actually worked at wooing anyone).

As always, the majority of my social media activity has been swearing about ableism on Twitter (@WheelsofSteer). At the time of writing my following has more than doubled in the past year, & I’m hoping to reach the 10k mark in the next few months. I’ve had quite a few people take to social media to lambaste me for taking such an interest in the statistics, & I would hope I never let my drive to increase my following lead me to do anything morally ambiguous, or “shady” as the kids call it these days. However, as someone who has always been mathematically-minded, I cannot help taking an interest & perhaps a little pride in watching those numbers climb.

Perhaps my largest development of the past year in relation to my blog started out as live-streaming on Twitter, & due to a mix of technical & accessibility difficulties, evolved into setting up a YouTube channel & producing the fortnightly show Weekend on Wheels for approximately 6 months. Making videos is definitely the most challenging aspect of my blogging work; I have a very basic qualification in IT & in performing arts, & up until a few months ago had never presented or edited a video. I built a camera stand out of Lego, used my phone to film myself, & downloaded some free video-editing software. After much searching on YouTube for instructions on how to use the software, ironically using videos that had been produced on said software, I began to learn the ropes. 6 months in I have decided to bring my edited show to an end, but will continue to release vlogs instead, & I have a humble following on YouTube to show for my efforts. I’m no PewDiePie, but then again I’m also not prone to racist outbursts, so perhaps that is a good thing.

Cliché as it sounds, I would be nothing without you – my readers, followers, commenters, & occasional trolls. Social activism can often feel like I’m screaming into a void, & compared to other “influencers” I’m not even worth a footnote, but I still feel like I’m making progress. I set up this blog to educate people about disability, & it would appear that I am doing just that. Constantly comparing yourself to others on social media has well-documented adverse mental health effects, & so I try not to let it dishearten me.

Over the next year I hope to keep producing high-quality content, both on here & YouTube. I’d also like to keep growing my following, to reach more & more people with my message of equality, & perhaps even to start on the book manuscript I’ve been promising for quite some time…

Here’s to another year of the little blog that could!

2 Years of Diary of a Disabled Person!

Image description: "Happy Birthday Diary of a Disabled Person: 2 Years Old" is written in pink text in a white box, over a background of presents.

Diary of a Disabled Person: 2 Years On!

In a couple of days this blog will have been a part of my life for two whole years. Two. Fricking. Years. For some reason I have been unable to fathom, people keep coming back for more, and who am I to deny my readers what they want? Except for being, you know, the author.

A year ago I did a recap of all that had happened in Diary of a Disabled Person’s initial year (https://diaryofadisabledperson.blog/2018/01/14/diary-of-a-disabled-person-one-year-on/), ending with a whopping 68,000 views, 80 followers, and 400 Facebook page followers. Now it’s time to reflect on what’s happened since then.

My total view count is nearing 80,000 views, which admittedly means that my blog has been viewed far less this year. This is partly due to my issues with Cracked.com and the fact that I haven’t published anything with them for a long time, but I fear changes to net neutrality may also have had something to do with this. However, while my view count is lower my WordPress following has shot up, reaching 200 just a few days ago. Similarly, the fan base I have accrued is incredibly loyal, never failing to show their support for me. This is reflected in particular in the 5 awards my blog has won in the past year.

I also took time to purchase a web domain and give my website a makeover, using a template to keep it professional-looking, while improving menus, accessibility, and friendliness for phone and tablet use. I created an audio page and went through the entire backlog of posts, making a recording of myself reading them aloud for those who prefer to listen rather than read.

A burst of inspiration also led me to start writing short stories which featured disabled protagonists in farcical scenarios, predominantly to entertain and make people laugh, but also to raise awareness of the issues disabled people can face on a day-to-day basis. These turned out to be incredibly popular, and over the course of the year I published 13 of them.

On social media my Facebook (@diaryofadisabledperson) page has seen some growth, and I set up an associated group as a place to share polls and news articles relevant to disability. I also set up an Instagram (@diaryofadisabledperson) account, which mostly consists of pictures from local wrestling shows and various selfies.

However, by far my biggest success on social media has been setting up a Twitter account (@WheelsofSteer). I am shamelessly explicit with my language, and frequently share anecdotes of both good and bad things happening to me that make people laugh and think. I’ve even taken to adapting famous song lyrics to make them about disability instead. Clearly my sarcastic comments resonate with the Twitter community as I am fast approaching 4,000 followers.

Looking forwards there is still plenty of room for Diary of a Disabled Person to grow. I am working on turning my blog into a book, a complex and time-consuming process but one that will be extremely rewarding. I can also confirm that a further 6 short stories have been written and these will be released soon. I am also thinking of starting some vlogging on the side, something which many of you have requested, as I have found some video editing software that would allow me to do this.

Let’s hope that I have as much positive news to share with you again in a year’s time, when I look back on the third year of Diary of a Disabled Person.

Diary of a Disabled Person: One Year On.

Tomorrow is Diary of a Disabled Person’s first birthday, and even in just one year, so much has changed.

When I first started the blog the majority of the readers came from family and members of an online Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) support group. It was wonderful to have the support of those around me, but I really wanted to reach out and educate people about CFS and disability who might not know much about these issues through lack of experience. For the first few months I struggled with this, until I had the idea to set up a Facebook page to support the blog, sharing whenever a new blog post was released, plus other bits and pieces picked up from around the internet in-between. Slowly this began to attract a few more followers, and my readership started to grow.

The biggest boost to my readership came in July, when my first article for Cracked.com was published. At the very end of the article a link to my blog and Facebook page were attached, and my readership went from approximately 30 views on the day each blog entry was released, to 5,000, with readers listed in almost 100 countries. I was flooded with messages from people all over the world, and surprisingly few of them were trolls. I was told stories of how I was helping people to come to terms with developing a disability, or inspiring others with disability to live a bit. I was also the recipient of many messages telling me that my attitude to disability was both refreshing and eye-opening; I had caught the attention of many able-bodied people who were suddenly made aware of some of the issues faced by the disabled, and actively wanted to help avoid those issues in the future. I even had correspondence from people with entirely different political views to mine saying that they liked my attitude to life and respected me, even if they didn’t always agree with me.

After a month or so the buzz had settled down but my regular fan base had more than doubled, and steadily increased thereafter. The release of another Cracked.com article seemed to have a similar effect. Now I have over 80 followers of my blog, almost 68,000 views in total, and more than 400 followers on my Facebook page, and have regular conversation with a few fans. It’s amazing how quickly things have developed. A little less than a month ago I was also nominated for the Leibster award, a German award given to bloggers by other bloggers celebrating wholesome, fulfilling blogs with the potential to expand even further. I will be accepting it next week!

I now have far more confidence in my abilities as a writer, and I consider it to be one of the most important things in my life, perhaps even having the potential to work as a career. I am happy that I can express myself so coherently and with such freedom.

With that, I want to thank all of you for taking the time out of each week to read my ramblings, to give me good feedback, and to show your support. I can only hope that Diary of a Disabled Person continues to flourish.