Happy new year! I hope 2025 has so far treated you well. And, with the new year upon us, it also marks Whimsical Whatever’s first birthday!

Well – kinda. We published our first articles in late December 2023, but since this is the first post of the new year, it’s kind of a belated birthday celebration. But it only feels like yesterday when we hit ‘publish’ on the first post, and it’s difficult to believe that a whole year has already passed.

To celebrate reaching this milestone, I thought I’d deviate slightly from the typical content of Whimsical Whatever by writing about my experiences with creating and working on this website over its first year.

The first year

Before creating the website and hitting ‘publish’ on the first post, I think it would be safe to say I did as much research as I could. Research included watching hours of YouTube videos, reading numerous articles explaining the inner workings of creating a website, looking into the importance of owning it versus WordPress/Blogger/other platforms simply providing hosting, reading in-depth articles on how to avoid failing in your first year and the importance of not getting too caught up in the design… It was all too easy to frequently become overwhelmed by all the information I was consuming.

I’d been wanting to start an online publication similar to Whimsical Whatever for some years by late 2023. I even remember tweeting Jane Pratt (founder of the iconic ’90s teen magazine Sassy and the lifestyle website xojane.com) on an old Twitter account asking whether, at 15, I should give it a go – to my surprise, she responded and shone a green light to my idea. It wasn’t until about eight years later that I actually ended up taking the ‘plunge’ and co-founded this website with my mum, Cher, but I started it in the end!

But there were so many things I didn’t anticipate before starting the website, and I now wonder if it’s impossible to completely comprehend it all until you’re in it, working your way through the complications, no matter how much research and procrastination you indulge in beforehand. Here are the things I’ve learned over the past year. 

What to know before starting your own online publication

Despite my research, I did not expect the amount of work that would be required

As it stands now, at Whimsical Whatever, we publish once a week. Being a website that mostly waxes lyrical about aesthetics and joyous living, coming up with content has so far been easy enough – there’s always something to write about, at least. Article writing hasn’t been so taxing, but I can see that for those who aren’t writers, this can be something that others may struggle with. But what was especially difficult was the fact that…

… Website maintenance is a near-daily test of patience

Something needs to be fixed. Every. Single. Day. Whether a post isn’t uploading properly, mercury retrograde is doing the most or there’s a glitch in the matrix, something’s always up.

Whimsical Whatever is powered by WordPress, so it’s not exactly like I’m maintaining a website completely from scratch. But there’s no denying that trying to learn how things work (such as plugins, widgets, blocks, etc) can be so trying sometimes, especially when you just want to edit that article and think about the best position to place that picture. I cannot tell you the amount of times I have wanted to make a slight tweak in the design of the website and in attempting to do so, have lost the entire homepage so completely that it was down for several weeks 😅.

Speaking of which, you have to don a few hats…

Whimsical Whatever was co-founded with my mum, Cher, to share our love for aesthetics. But whether working as a duo or when I’m flying solo, there have been times when I’ve been almost overwhelmed by all the hats I’ve had to don.

Other than writing articles and keeping up with the maintenance of the website, you’re also the SEO optimiser, content creator, social media manager, email list maintainer, and probably so many other things I’m forgetting about. If you’re just starting out, you’ll probably take on most of these tasks yourself, so at times it can feel like you’re trying to keep multiple plates spinning at once. Which also leads into…

… How much time it takes

Creating the website, maintaining it and keeping it updated is time consuming. The website was started as a hobby, a part time pass time that I could do alongside studying for a degree and other writing. So if there’s one thing I underestimated, it’s probably just how much of my time it takes. This small corner of the internet is in almost every waking thought (without a concerted effort to focus on another task), haunts me in my dreams, and is often one of the first things I think about when my eyes open in the morning (I’m only half-joking). 

I have had to start treating it like a job, where I clock in and clock out, and carve out short periods of the year where I take a complete and total break from it for my own sanity. But life can at times get in the way, and if there’s one thing I’m taking into the new year is being a bit easier on myself if I don’t meet self-imposed deadlines or don’t feel something is ‘perfect’ before hitting publish.

You’re probably not gonna make money from it

In its first year, your website is an infant. It’s trying to find its legs, and you’ll probably be surprised by how many times you might switch direction in where it’s going and what it publishes. The seedling of the idea seemed fun at first, but once you nosedive into SEO (after working out what that, as well as all the many other abbreviations, even means), optimising your website for Google, considering trending topics so you can harness your social media potential and all the other things I could go on about, you quickly gather that this hobby is going to require the most out of you. The hours you’ll put in will reflect that of a part-time, or even full-time job, but – in the first year or so – often without the paycheck, and sometimes it can be hard to find the motivation when your to-do list of other important things is piling up while gathering a thin layer of dust too.

Is it worth it?

I suppose the fact Whimsical Whatever is still up and running is a giveaway that whatever surprising struggles faced in the first year, there are clearly no regrets in starting the website. 

A quote I recently came across and particularly like is this from John Quincy Adams:

“Try and fail,
but don’t fail to try.“

It’s an energy I’m looking to carry with me throughout 2025, especially as we move into the second year of Whimsical Whatever. The site is still evolving, still growing, still morphing, but I feel excited about where it’s going and the things planned for this year ahead. So, yes, I’d say it’s worth it.