Celebrating 5 Years With Hubpages

Having recently hit my 5-year mark here at HubPages I often forget to celebrate the achievement of having written anything featured. Or anything published for that matter. While it is not something I advertise freely, I have mild dyslexia. Being able to say that I have written anything published is a major achievement for me on a personal level.

I do often have to put a lot of hard work into each individual article getting it to a readable level. Often my thoughts jumble and that reflects in my writing. In order to have things flow properly, check grammatical issues and so forth I use several word processing programs, and editing tools. Still at the end of the day the community and experience of writing for HubPages is cause for celebration.

I have always loved writing. From an early age I had taken creative writing classes and throughout high school I was an editor for our school newspaper. It was never easy for me; I was constantly staring at red marks and re-editing school projects. I still enjoyed writing despite the hurdles I had to overcome. I was blessed with several teachers who were extremely patient with me and understood that underneath the issues I had with dyslexia that I still had a natural talent.

When I first started writing for hubpages I chose it after a lot of online research. Why? Because I needed a platform that would fit with my abilities. Given that writing takes a bit of extra effort on my part, I did not want to have to worry about trying to build my own webpage. I chose to write for hubpages for several reasons:

• Free Writing Platform
• Easy to use templates
• No html required
• Learning Center
• I could earn potential income

At the time I was a stay at home mom to my son who is now 6 years old. I have a lot of insomnia issues and was looking to fill my time with something productive. I did not want to have to build my own website or learn any html (I felt that would be a disaster given dyslexia often jumbles things around and creates a burden with comprehension at times).

Hubpages was a free writing platform, with no costs incurred by the writer. Offering easy to use templates and layout tools for articles. No html required or needed when using the templates, a bonus for someone like me. The learning center for me was an amazing resource, though I can tell you I still after 5 years with hubages learn something new all the time.

The ad program and potential affiliate sales were also a major point when I chose to write for hubpages. I don’t imagine I will ever get rich with my articles, but any additional income I earn through the ad program and amazon affiliate are an awesome perk to my published content.

The community and fellowship at hubpages have offered me so much confidence in myself and my writing. When you deal with even mild dyslexia it can be frustrating to say the least. I can often read and re-read my own articles several times and miss mistakes. I try to go through and edit regularly often catching the tiniest errors. Simple errors like using the wrong word but at the time I wrote it I never noticed. Early in my time here other hubbers reached out to offer me assistance also noting I had a natural talent and helped mentor me and point me in the right direction for polishing articles.

Without having met LongTimeMother and her taking the time to connect with me through the community I have no doubt that I would probably have given up early on. Realistically it feels like only yesterday that she connected with me and helped me with my journey here at hubpages. She stuck with me, believed in me and I would not have achieved writing as much as I have without her influence.

I could have started a blog, but what blog offers the friendship and support of fellow writers? None, sure you may build a following but you would never be supported by others with amazing talent like you are at hubpages.

Even after being with hubpages for 5 years I find that I am always learning. Things I somehow overlooked in the learning center early on. It is a vast resource and I try to frequently go over the tips and information covered. Do you learn new things or see things you may have overlooked, or is it just my dyslexia that causes me to always be learning?

I often have found that other hubbers have written articles about features on hubpages that offer me an insight to features I may have had difficulty using or understanding. Again, it’s the community keeps me informed and creating by sharing their insights into features and writing. Just yesterday I came across another hubbers article about hubpages features and learned something I had not really understood or even considered before. So now I know that when editing a published article I should click ‘Don’t display this capsule’, thank you Glenn!

I often forget to take pride in having articles published here at hubpages and articles moved to niche sites. While I do have a high level of excitement when I open a heads-up email about an article being moved, I forget to take pride in my accomplishments. I know simply being published and having articles featured may not be a major accomplishment for many of the outstanding writers here at hubpages, for me it is. Just as it was my entire life, reading and writing are a bit of a struggle with mild dyslexia. I often find that a major issue is that what I write is too hard to read.

My first draft of any article has me scoring at a 30.0-0.0 on the Flesch reading ease test. This means it is very difficult to read and not suitable for an online article. I must edit, re-edit and research alternate phrases and words for use. Then edit a few more times before I consider publishing. I have recently published several new articles with the current pandemic and stay at home orders, these have all been drafts for over a year that needed much more polishing. I also use several different programs to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Spelling errors are common for me, I just tend to skip over letters and omit them in words when I write. Even after publishing I often go back a few weeks later and notice tiny little errors that need my attention.

I know to a lot of writers taking pride in their work is automatic if they get lots of traffic or can write with ease. Sometimes I must remind myself that for me on a personal level I should take pride in my accomplishments here with hubpages as a writer. At the end of the day I am doing what I have always loved despite having to overcome hurdles with dyslexia. While I may never publish a novel, and I am a bit of a niche-less writer I take pride in all my published articles and my time spent with hubpages. So here is to 5 wonderful years at hubpages that I consider a blessing and I hope to continue to write articles for many years to come.