This year was an interesting year. I started this blog, I faced some fears, I developed new friendships out of those friendships I got a new best friend. I worked with some amazing brands that is really unheard of in your first year of blogging, I wrote a book, got invited to some cool events. Wow.
Reflecting on the year as I'm writing it felt like not a lot has changed but everything has changed. I can't wait to see what next year holds. Starting this blog again was the best decision I made this year. I didn't realize how much this would change my life. I finally found my passion.
I had times I lost my creativity but I think that's how it usually goes. Your so creative and you wake up and want to create everyday. Then one day you wake up to get ready to write a post or something and you sit there staring at a blank page so uninspired. One of my goals for 2018 is to have some backup posts so when I'm feeling this way I can still post and not leave you hanging. People don't realize running a blog is a lot of work. I work on this for hours and hours every day. Not just writing posts but managing my social media, emails, reaching out to brands, brainstorming on what's next. I don't have a manager, PR firm, photographer, editor, a graphic designer I'm working with that's all me. So it takes time a lot of time. I'm very happy to do so. Not downing bloggers that have all of those things. I'm planning to expand that way in the next year or so. I want to see my complete vision before I get other people involved so I won't get lost in everything. Because at the end of the day it's Danielle N The City. My story, my vision and I want to keep as true to it as I can. With all that being said...Danielle N The City is going to be going through a makeover in the next few months. I'm very excited!
I have known Khleo Thomas since I was 16 and I got the chance to take over his Snapchat in August. I was so freaked out. I didn't really say anything because I wasn't sure how it would go. But it was actually fun. I was talking about what I do and the places around LA I like to go to that inspire me. I notice I freak out and then it ends up not being so bad. I uploaded a few of the snaps to my Instagram story. I was going to make a whole post all about my experience but by the time I was going too it was October and I was like nevermind. But if you get the chance to take over someone Snapchat or Instagram for a day I highly recommend it. I got new readers and followers from it all that nervousness was worth it.
During the last part of the year I got a job in retail. I always had a fear of working in retail. I wasn't expecting to get hired on the spot. But the first few days were a mess. In the training, they didn't teach us what we really needed to know on the job. My very first day ever working in retail was black Friday...one of the busiest days of the year. With no proper training, I was freaking out. I literally wasn't sleeping well the week before. I ended up passing out flyers and wondering around my department. The turnout wasn't as large as they were planning. Thank God! I was supposed to be working full time. But I was hardly working part-time. I was working like 12 days in December and then cut more time off. So I ended up working 6 days in December. Here I was thinking I was going to be working a lot in November and December. So I really just got a taste of working in retail and that's really all I needed.
Also I wrote a book. It's more of a guide about how to work Instagram. I have noticed things that have worked for me that I haven't seen people talk about. I wanted to do that for months and I finally did it. People are loving it and it's helping them. I plan on writing more books in the future.
Overall I had a good year. I went through some struggles in my personal life but I wanted to keep this post focused on the positive. In 2018 I'm giving Danielle N The City a big makeover. I'm planning to have a real newsletter I send out once a week. I'm moving my blog to WordPress. I've been feeling the push to move my blog to WordPress for months now. I plan to travel a lot more in 2018 and bring some more travel posts. I want to post more personal style posts as well. 2018 is going to be great I can feel it!
What are your best memories of 2017?
See you next year
xoxo- Danielle
