The Evolution of Palate Practice

Palate Practice turns three years old this week! My little blog-baby has been out in the world for so long now, sharing all sorts of stories and hijinx and generally existing successfully. Blogs seem to age quicker than humans, it’s only been three years of my life that Palate Practice has existed but I feel like it’s already reached its adolescence in a way.

To be honest I really didn’t think I’d get here.

Blogging regularly takes much more dedication than I’m used to putting in to passion projects, especially posting weekly like I’ve done for the past year. There have been weeks where I was miles ahead, feeling like it was all too easy to make this thing happen. And then there have been weeks where the words just wouldn’t come, where posts wouldn’t go live until sometime Thursday night (I usually aim to schedule posts in advance!) and I would trust that posted was better than perfect and that next week, at least, would bring a new opportunity to write better.

I feel like Palate Practice is a much different blog than it was when it started. I’m much more confident with my voice and content ideas and much more comfortable putting my words out there. I’m still carving out a place for myself in the wine blogging world, but I’m also game to keep working on that.

Let’s take a look at the past three years.

The Beginning

I started Palate Practice in 2015 as a semester-long project for a digital communications course I was taking. But that isn’t the whole story. I’ve always been a writer and felt the need to capture my thoughts in words to share with the world. I’d written in a Livejournal for about a decade (so emo!) and had attempted to get other blogs up on their feet without much success. So when I signed up for the course I gained the external motivator I needed to finally get myself together and do it.

But why wine? Well, at the time I needed to choose a topic that I knew I could write about for at least 12 posts and I was pretty confident that I could find enough content on the topic of wine. Little did I know I’d be able to find enough content for three years and counting.

The Middle

By the time the course ended I knew I wasn’t done writing about wine. I also knew that I wanted to know more about it so I could confidently write content over here. This is when the blog began in earnest. I took course after course and learned so much that my list of post ideas grew by a mile.

I didn’t write for most of 2016 because (unbeknownst to me at the time) I was working through some personal issues. Thankfully, by the end of the year things had gotten better and I’m proud to say that, with the exception of taking two weeks off over the holidays, I’ve posted weekly since November 2016. If you’ve ever tried to build a new habit I hope you can appreciate how good this accomplishment feels.

The End

Just kidding! I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Instead I keep scheming and planning the continued evolution of Palate Practice.

Interestingly, the blogs and websites I look up to aren’t wine blogs. They’re beauty blogs my friends run and a tarot blog-turned-website run by this wonderful British woman. I regularly check in on their sites to see what they’re talking about and how they’ve evolved in the time I’ve been reading. I’m also a bit of a creeper when it comes to lifestyle blogs, constantly checking out what I see as the competition and sussing whether there’s anything that they do that I want to adapt for my own uses.

What you can expect going forward

• Interesting and informative posts about wine
• More beer content
• Your burning wine questions answered with the new Wine WTFs series
• More and different content on the Palate Practice Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (so join me over there already!)
• The same old informal, approachable, often goofy me you’ve come to know and love

Want to see anything else, or have a request for Wine WTFs? Let me know!