Reach Out
Posted By Tough Cookie Mommy on September 28, 2010
This is probably going to be one of my favorite posts because it revolves around one of my favorite things to do, blogging. Ever since I was a little girl, I have known that I was a writer. Nobody ever tells you to be a writer or gives you permission to be one, you just know you are one. It is a passion that compels you to reach into the innermost crevices of who you are and to share these thoughts and feelings, in written form, with just about anyone who will be receptive to them.
Since I became a mother, seven years ago, I kind of put my writing on the back burner due to the overwhelming demands of being a mother, a wife, a full-time Middle School teacher, and the list goes on and on. This is often what happens to us women when we have a lot on our plate, so to speak, we make sacrifices and put off doing the things that bring us personal joy to do the things that need to be done. It’s almost as if we have a switch that goes off catapulting us into auto-pilot mode.
Throughout this time, I have missed writing. As a matter of fact, I missed it so much that I began to look for ways to incorporate it into my hectic schedule. The result of this was an excessive amount of letter writing, list writing, emailing, and just about anything else that allowed me to express myself through the written word. Unfortunately, none of that was rewarding and there was a volcano of thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions, gripes, loves, hates, and so many other things waiting to erupt forth from my entire being.
Last year, I decided that it was imperative that I find an outlet for my creative genius because I had so much to share and I wasn’t really sure what the best way for me to share it was. Ironically, the idea of writing a blog came to me one night while I was on Facebook and a notification popped up from a friend of mine recommending that I read the blog of one of her friends. I immediately read it and thought, “I can so do this, it is exactly what I have been looking for.” That evening I started my blog on Blogger and I never looked back.
Writing a blog has been a learning experience in so many ways. I was confident in my ability to write and what I thought to be my natural blogging talent. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was the amount of work involved in getting your blog and, in essence, your writing out to the masses. I thought, “if I build it, they will come.” Boy was I wrong! The truth is that nobody is going to read your blog if you don’t put the time in to get the word out about it. Also, nobody is going to take you at your word that they should just read your blog because you think it is great. They will come and read it and make up their own minds or they will come based on the recommendation of someone else who thought your blog was great.
This leads me to the people that I have met since I started blogging last year…I’m going to throw caution to the wind and say that my initial impression was that most bloggers blog because they are looking for a residual income or to receive free products. I have since learned that this couldn’t be further from the truth. While it is true that blogging can be very lucrative for some people, this is not the only driving force that keeps so many of them blogging. It has been my pleasure to meet so many wonderful people who are candid about their lives and who they are and so brave in taking the risk to put themselves out there and be vulnerable to critique from others. Their blogs are a labor of love upon which they pour their whole unveiled selves.
As my blog has grown, I have settled into more of what I consider my ”tribe” to be. This group includes men and women who have similar reasons for blogging to mine and whom value the same things that I do which are family, family, and more family. They truly are a selfless lot, sharing their blogging experiences with me, introducing me to one another, and pretty much welcoming me into the “family fold.” We share victories, tragedies, and hopes and dreams daily with one another and, over time, have become a family ourselves.
My goals, as a blogger, include surrounding myself with more tribe members who have similar interests and using our collaborative to support and promote each other. I have witnessed, first hand the upward mobility and camaraderie that such a collective can achieve and I definitely want to be a part of it. It is not enough for me to promote my own blog and my own writing. By supporting the blogs and writing of others I am ultimately supporting my own. In order to accomplish these goals, I will be reaching out more and more to other bloggers that I feel blog within my niche and I am just going to put myself out there even more than I normally do. Wish me luck!
© 2010, Tough Cookie Mommy. All rights reserved.
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