Happy (belated) one year anniversary to Fleet Street Write-Up!!! (The actual one year date was on May 13th. Whoops!)
Thank you to everyone who has supported me this past year. I’ve met so many amazing people and made so many friends. The blogging community and the organizations/businesses supporting the blogging community… you guys are just brilliant and creative people. Whenever I feel like I lack motivation to do stuff for my blog, I always look over to you guys and see the excitement, passion, dedication, and perseverance just coming off ya’ll.
I also want to give a shout out to my loved ones, who are not part of the blogging community or part of a business/organization. My close friends are ridiculously creative… like forreal. For some reason, I naturally tend to surround myself with artsy people. They either do photography, graphic design, web designing, write fiction, draw, make fuckin’ arts and crafts, bake, dance, play an instrument, do woodworking, etc. I am just so amazed of how much creativity flows out of them like it’s no big deal. They are always a source of inspiration and an endless well of warm and caring support.
My family is just the bomb. They are always open to trying new foods and activities whenever I’m exploring near DC (because they live around there). So great to have a open minded family!
And my boyfriend, Dave, just rocks my socks off. He’s always down to try new stuff and goes to events with me. He’s been my number one supporter throughout my whole blogging experience, and gives me advice when the blogging world gets tough. He’s the fuckin’ best.
Anyways, I never imagined this blog to be as successful as it is now. When this all started off, I remember just sitting with my friend Gene, at Artifact Coffee, bouncing blog names back and forth to each other. He came up with “Fleet Street”. It’s not only a well-known street in Baltimore city, but also the street I lived on during that time. I came up with “write-up” part after spending so much time on thesaurus.com and looking up synonyms to words like ‘post’ or ‘review’ or ‘article’… you get the idea. This whole process took about four hours of brain storming, sitting on our asses, and sipping lots of dirty chais and chai lattes. Also, I think I gave up on making a blog for a good five minutes too haha. Coming up with a blog name that’s catchy is very difficult!
When I was coming up with ideas for what kind of blog posts I wanted to write about, I knew they would be about new places that just opened up or hidden gems In the city. I also knew I didn’t want to just stick to food. I wanted my blog to be about exploring all the different things Baltimore city offered. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, experience events and activities I was scared of doing by myself, and share to others the positive impacts and benefits of doing those experiences.
It was scary and nerve-wrecking for the first two months blogging. Not gonna lie. I mean, here is this random girl, with her camera, going into a restaurant or a bar or some place, taking pictures, and trying to get information about the establishment/organization from someone working there. Of course it’s super easy to do it now, but when you start off with no support other than your damn self, in addition to having no experience in the blogging field… and randomly striking up a conversation with a stranger, it’s tough. It’s a block you have to get over. And I knew that if I wanted to discover Baltimore city and do write-ups, I had to get over whatever fear I had, and get out of my shell.
Overtime, as I began to meet more people and expand my network and make friends, I was exposed to a bunch of opportunities. I never thought I would be running and partnering up with Andrew for the Baltimore Brew Club (which he founded and ran all by himself before I stepped in), being included in an article in Southwest’s Magazine February 2018 issue, being asked to do restaurant interior photo shoots for multiple restaurants, getting asked to run the social media account for a small business, going out to dinner with food bloggers, having my pictures being credited and reposted by businesses/organizations, being asked to be a judge for a chef throw down and a latte art throw down, and so much more. Regardless whether these opportunities were big or small, these were the moments that made me realize how much my blog has grown and how much it’s still growing.
I have lots of big plans for Fleet Street Write-up, and I have already started to implement some of them. If you follow my Instagram, you’ll realize I’m trying to post my adventures outside of Baltimore city. For the past ten months, I was sticking to just only Baltimore city, but I decided that it would be better to expose my readers to places I’ve traveled outside of Baltimore. I wanted my readers to get an idea of what to do when their vacationing too. I’ve also went out of my food comfort zone and decided to post more pictures that are non-food related. I never wanted to be known as a food blogger only, but I always leaned towards food (I love food so much hahaha and food is so easy to post), and of course, I got known a food blogger, ha! My goal this year is to get out of that area that others categorize me in and to be just known as a Baltimore blogger. I also want to start doing more write-ups on non-food events. I’ve done a couple like Sofar Baltimore, Amaphiko, the Made In Baltimore Launch Party, etc. This blog is all about getting out of your comfort zone and exploring places and activities in Baltimore City you’ve always wanted to try (but nervous to for whatever reason), so I need to stick to that and do that!
Again, thank you so much to everyone who has joined me along this ride. Can’t wait to see what year two has in store for this blog!
And also, I know you guys have been itching for a new blog post (does this count?) and I have one coming up soon! Stay tuned!
Rachel