Blogger Behind the Blog {Whinge, Whinge, Wine}

Here’s this week’s instalment of Blogger Behind the Blog where I interview a blogger all about their reasons for blogging and what it means to them. This week I’m joined by Fran from Whinge, Whinge, Wine.

Here’s Fran with more about why she blogs:

Where did your blog name come from?

I knew it had to have a pun in it.. and probably involve wine… So I put it out to my buddies and one came up with it. It’s pretty much how my day goes; Whinge, Whinge, Wine.

When did you start your blog and why?

I belonged to a Facebook group where I used to post updates about my kids, and they encouraged me to start blogging. I guess it was a form of therapy after spending 20 hours a day awake with a constantly screaming reflux baby.

What did you do before you blogged?

I was (until recently) working as a service manager for local government. I would still be there now but they were a bunch of dicks when it came to flexible working and so I left (you can read the full story here and here)

What was your first post?

Aside from a generic ‘Hi, this is me‘ post it was a post about all the stupid things people say when you tell them your baby doesn’t sleep

What inspires you to blog?

My thoroughly maddening but cute children.

What post has had the best response, which post are you most proud of and which post did you enjoy writing the most?

My most viewed post by far was the tale of my disastrous holiday – can you believe they didn’t even apologise? The next, and one I’m proud of, is one about the pyramid schemes that call themselves MLMs which suck in poor unsuspecting women on maternity leave and cost them their money and their friends. That still gets a lot of views (relatively) now.

Have any of your posts not had the response that you expected?

Not really. You always get one person who takes everything very seriously but as most of it is quite tongue in cheek you’d have to go quite far to be offended by most of it! Unless you were a Forever Living rep maybe 😉

Where do you see your blog in a year’s time?

Oh, I don’t know. I’d hope the same but I don’t think realistically I can afford to keep spending my time on it as I do now with no return, if I stop enjoying it I’ll stop, if I need to make money I’ll probably have to scale it back a bit. Who knows what the future holds.

What is your favourite thing about blogging?

I like the sense of community there is with other bloggers. I’ve met a fantastic group of people. It’s also very cathartic and it gives me something to think about (obsessively perhaps) outside of just the children and being a mum.

…and your least favourite?

Basically any time someone says ‘I can’t believe you get free stuff! I’m going to start up a blog’ because that just shows a total lack of understanding about what’s involved. It’s actually really hard work, and there are so many blogs out there it can be a little overwhelming to be a little fish in a huge sea of brilliant writers. I think about packing it in probably once every few weeks.

What’s the best blog post you have ever read?

Do you know, I never read blogs before I started blogging. Or if I read them I didn’t recognise them as blogs. Now I read so many that it is hard to pick a favourite. One that sticks in my mind is Min from Single Mum Speaks and her ‘Parody of a mummy blogger’. It made me laugh so much (and cringe a little!). I also loved this one about breastfeeding from Mouse Moo and Me Too.

What blog do you love to read and why?

I find beta mummy hilarious (and she’s also a lovely person!). I also make sure I catch up with everything Mumzilla posts; I think she has a great blog.

Do you do anything differently now to when you started blogging?

I am way more active on social media. I don’t recognise myself. I used to upload facebook maybe once a week and always said I would never have pictures of my kids online… and look at me now. If you’d have told me a year ago I’d be on Twitter I would have laughed in your face.

Is blogging what you expected it to be?

Nothing like it. I think I assumed you could just write, hit publish and people would look past the lack of pictures and fancy website and see the brilliant content. That’s totally not what it is like. It is a billion times more complicated, at least if you want to achieve any kind of modicum of success.

What’s been your favourite blog collaboration to date?

I’ve not done any… I’m looking forward to my new car seats arriving (thanks to Emma from Island Living for putting me in contact – see aforementioned community!) and doing my first real review posts for something I really needed!

Are there any brands you would love to work with, why?

Oyster Bay, but they haven’t returned my emails…

Have you had any blogging fails so far?

I don’t think so, at least I am not aware of them. My readership isn’t big enough to have my oops moments noticed really 😉 I think sometimes I should turn off the notifications because my son does like to throw himself off things while I’m tweeting…

What is your biggest blogging hope, dream or ambition?

That someone will pay me to do exactly what I’m doing so I can keep doing it;)

What do you do when you’re not blogging?

Huh? Don’t understand the question 😉 Pay loose attention to my children and eat, drink and sleep.

and lastly, tell us all a random fact about yourself:

My husband and I share a birthday. Which we haven’t actually got around to celebrating for a few years anyway…

Now that you know all about Fran from Whinge, Whinge, Wine, make sure you go and read her blog. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – thanks so much Fran for being involved!