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Saturday, November 1, 2014

Hey, It's Just Me

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/tiastones

This. This is how I'm starting this blog. With NaNoWriMo. It seems fitting. I'm not really sure why, I'm just going with it. "They" say write what you know. I've been writing what I know since I was about five or six years old. I'm a lifer. I've been blogging on and off for the past 10 years, with varying degrees of success. The only one that has stuck so far has been my lovely crochet blog Crochet Rochelle. (If you dig crochet and free patterns, do visit.)

Otherwise, my little blogging career has been a series of starts and stops and misadventures, more or less. I wrote several fun posts about life with two boys over at Mistress of Madness and Mayhem, and enjoyed myself immensely. I may blog there again, irregularly at best and only if one my munchkins does something horrendous or notorious. That's how they roll. 

I even tried to start a blog about Taoism. Every attempt at blogging started out feeling awesome and there was this initial jolt of blogging energy that fueled my motivation. I always had the best intentions. I'd get it all set up with social media accounts, some fresh graphics, a header and the usual required blog pretties. And I would put out the posts and do my best to shout the proverbial "Hey internet! Look at me! Look what I can do!"

Each attempt fizzled. Looking back I've come to think that perhaps they all were shadow blogs, blogs that wanted to be authentic to my true voice and self but just didn't quite cut it. I read every blog expert and for awhile I was obsessed with "learning how to blog." Like it was somehow a college degree I could earn or pass, hoping for that honorary plaque on the wall that said "You've now completed the required learning to become a successful blogger." That plaque never arrived.

In my research and stalking successful and "expert" bloggers, I kept seeing advice like "find your niche" and "you must have a niche" or "know your niche" along with "find your ideal or target audience," etc. So with each attempt at blogging, I was aiming at a niche. Or at least I was trying to find a niche and "target" audience. It didn't work too well. Until I realized (very recently) that I am my niche. I am my target audience.

I'm a life-long learner. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I never want to stop learning. It's who I am. The research, the hours reading, the mental digging, the information excavation - it excites me, regardless of the topic or passion. I crave the learning process. Recently, I decided to sit back a little and ponder, take a self inventory of sorts. I needed to reevaluate where I am, where I am going, and who I want to be.

I think we all do that at periodic intervals in our lives. Some people follow the common age marking intervals like 21, 30, 40, 50...you get the idea. Others take stock after traumatic experiences or dramatic achievements. I don't think it matters why you stop and do a mental evaluation. I think it matters that you do stop and check yourself, your dreams, your motivations. For me, its a mix of pleasure and pain. Pleasure that I have the ability to stop and think about things, be the observer of my thoughts and motivations. Pain that I am almost 40 years old and I'm still trying to figure my shit out. Who takes that long? Seriously?

If I am honest, and if I am my niche target audience, I think I don't care about how impossible my dream seems. And I think I don't care what people think of me anymore. I give myself permission to be me, whoever she is. I give myself permission to become my dream, and stop worrying about words like improbable, impossible, and someday. I give myself permission to be more.

I give you permission to be you, and to make up your own mind about me. I can't tell you exactly what this blog will be about. I can't promise I'll stick to any one passion or topic. I can't promise that everything will always be relevant, moving or helpful. I am a storyteller, wife and mommy. So I'm guessing I'll write about that.

As this is my first post. I'll wrap by saying thank you. Thank you for reading, if you're still hear. If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, I'd love to connect, share progress and encouragement with you. If social media is your thing, check out the right hand column for the places I typically haunt. See you over there.