August 13, 2015

Closed

Well guys, I’m movin’ on out. And up. I’m 13 days away from turning 30, and I’m SUPER excited to say this age will bring a brand new transition in not only my life but in my future business life–I’m closing up shop here on the blog, A Novel Quest.

This is not goodbye.

I’ve made the decision to move away from the more personal blog posts, and into a blog that’s more valuable for people who suffer anxiety and a serious lack of self-love.

I can’t continue forward with this ambition to help people under this domain name. I’ve thought about it a lot, but this domain name started out as my quest to write a novel, and it was sort of a play on words. I still love it a million times over, but it just doesn’t fit with where I want to go with this blog anymore.

But the blog itself isn’t going anywhere. None of the past 4 years’ worth of posts will disappear. I can’t go that far. But I am switching domains and I am switching hosting. I’m moving away from WordPress and switching to Squarespace, which is huge because I’ve had WordPress for the past four years and it’s all I’ve ever known!

But seriously, have you seen Squarespace websites? They’re fucking beautiful! I played around with it yesterday, and it was so easy to edit every little thing. They even have an area where you can create your own logo. Like what?

They thought of every person in the world who doesn’t know a line of code when they built Squarespace. Everything is literally drag and drop, and that’s exactly what I like. I’ve been so frustrated with my blog for so long because it always took a ton of research to edit anything. I couldn’t get creative with anything, and there was so much I always wanted to add but didn’t know how to do.

Plus with WordPress there’s a ton of plug-ins you need to do anything, and you can’t even get the nice versions of those without paying a pretty penny.

With Squarespace, it’s only $8/month if you pay for the whole year, and $10/month if you pay monthly. And you can even get a domain name through them. They take care of everything. It’s just too good to pass up. Plus it’s fate. After I started thinking about the switch for a few minutes, I saw a tweet that said ‘Curious About Squarespace?’ and it was to a free webinar about how awesome it was. It’s like OK UNIVERSE YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT.

But seriously.

I’m also taking an email course that talks about how important it is to build products for your blog, and that you don’t have to have a lot of traffic to make a living from it.

This really clicked for me. I always focused on building blog traffic so I could earn money from sponsorships and ads, but all that stuff really puts a cap on how much money you can earn as a blogger, and I really didn’t think about that.

Basically, my mind is getting blown by blogger Mariah Coz of Femtrepreneur.co, and I’m ready to start taking blogging seriously. As well as my life. I’m ready to start doing what I love for a living, and what I love is metaphysics, writing, and lots of freakin’ self love talk! As well as overcoming anxiety. I just can’t get enough, as you might have noticed.

So I’m done messing around. I’m making the switch, and I’m so ready to create awesome products that help the world! You know you’re in the right place when you can’t stop writing down ideas each day, and you already literally feel like you’ve accomplished everything you’re writing down. Before you even do it. What’s that saying? Fake it till you make it? It’s just insanely awesome.

So it is definitely with a tearful eye that I say goodbye to this precious domain. I have nothing but gratitude for what this blog brought me, and it’s because of this blog that I have the direction that I do today. It’s brought so much comfort to my long, lonely nights, and given meaning to my days. It’s allowed me to learn so much more about a hobby I never knew I would grow to love. I mean I literally know so much about blogging now, I could teach a class!

I’m so incredibly grateful for stumbling upon this, and I truly believe it was my higher self, pointing me in this direction. I encourage anyone who’s feeling lost and directionless in their lives to pick their favorite topic and blog about it. I know it sounds kind of like a lot of work, but you never know what it could lead to. It’s not the end-all be-all, but it could be a serious stepping stone to discovering something you’re passionate about.

I’m going to leave the blog up until my hosting expires, since I paid for the year, and I’m STILL continuing with my 30 days of posts (I’m no quitter!). And I’m going to try to make it so that every time you type in anovelquest.com it will redirect you to the new site, in case any of my old blog visitors decide to return, but as soon as this 30-day series is over, I’ll hopefully be launching the new site shortly after that.

But I’m totally taking you guys with me! You won’t have to do anything different, I’m transferring everyone to the new blog once it’s up, so I’m still going to be sending you blog posts, but they’ll be about once a week, and some of them will be more newsletter style. I want nothing more than to make you love your precious existence here in this time of your life, and to provide you so much love and comfort as we all embark on our adventurous life journeys. (Seriously, self-love can change the world).

And that’s what I’m going to focus on. I’m going to try and focus less on the long posts about what I feel about anxiety and self-love, and focus more on the actionable steps people can take to start loving themselves and improve their lives.

How ya feelin? You with me? :) I’m excited!

Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

Latest posts by Monique Muro (see all)

←
  • http://melissa-field.com/ Melissa Field

    HOLY COW. I almost had a heart attack when I thought you were stopping blogging. Which affirmed to me how much I like reading your stuff. When I opened the email I thought this 30 days of blog posts was a farewell to blogging.

    Whew!

    I’m so glad you’re taking yourself to the next level! Turning my website/blog into its own business was one of the hardest and most amazing things I’ve ever done. It actually inspired my spirituality in even deeper ways because I had new challenges and I had to stop looking outside of myself for the answers. I also agree advertising is not the best route for the long term. A friend kept trying to tell me to put ads on my site, and I said no way. I didn’t want to give people any reason to click away. I also believe the internet is going through another evolution and people are growing weary of ads. I’m all for paying for content these days. If it’s quality content, of course I’ll pay for it.

    I’ve never used Squarespace, but I did consider it because it did look like an amazing service. But I am super happy with Weebly, and whether I use Squarespace or Weebly, I would never go another route. These all inclusive websites are the bomb and make me so happy.

    • http://anovelquest.com Monique Muro

      Haha my mom said the same thing on Facebook she was like WHAT! But I’m a lifer, I’m never going away! Haha just transitioning. And you’ve inspired me so much with your business, which why I feel so ready to take the leap! And you’re so right about people clicking away from your site, when I was listening to Mariah Coz talk about creating products she was like “Why would you want to have ads and have people click AWAY from your site?” And I honestly never thought about it like that! And I know you’re super happy with Weebly, I can’t believe I never even thought of using those platforms, but all the stuff you can do with it is just amazing! Having a website doesn’t have to be hard! Who knew :) Thank you so much for all of your support every day! xoxo

  • http://www.ShantiPublishing.com/ Deanna

    Wow! Lots and lots of transitions happening! How awesome! So glad to hear of your up and coming changes. :) It is interesting that you spoke of Self-Love as I recently read Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant. Great little fast read. I’ve been recommending it to everyone! And I’m in the middle of my second read of it and so many things in my life have been shifting! It truly is so powerful.

    I’m happy that you will be following your passion and helping others in ways that only you can. That is just so very important!

    Is the $8 a month for hosting? Is there only one company that offers it? I just switched from GoDaddy to Bluehost but I’m interested in learning more about Squarespace. You make it sound soooo awesome! :)

    • http://anovelquest.com Monique Muro

      Ooh that sounds like a book I need to check out, Deanna thanks for sharing! I’m so happy to hear it’s been the cause of a lot of shifts in your life, I’d love to hear what some of those shifts have been! As far as Squarespace I believe it’s $8/month for hosting as well because I think it’s included. But that price is only that cheap if you pay annually (so it would be $96/year). But if you do it month to month it’s only $12/month (versus $10 that I said in my post, that was a flub). Which I think is the option I am choosing! I feel like I’m stepping into an arena that’s just so much easier than before, and that I’ve been missing out! I’ll be sure to write something up about it the more I get acquainted with it :)