Frivolous Friday: Balancing Writing and Parenting Schedules

I’m intuitive about a lot of things. Child rearing being one. It doesn’t mean I’m great at it. It simply means I get the big picture with relative ease. Yet there are other things I don’t get at all. Obvious things that everyone else in the universe seems to inherently understand.

This is fine as long as I remain blissfully unaware of my ignorance. Yet the moment realization crystallizes and I can see with the utmost clarity that I have totally missed the boat that everyone else in the universe is on, I feel pretty sheepish.

Like infants, writers need a schedule to keep themselves on track. I do fairly well with that as a whole. However, as I transform my blog to include all my passions, I finally figured out I needed a blogging schedule as well.

Duh, right?

Well, sometimes we’re slow on the uptake…or, at least, I am. So here’s what’s in store for you as I balance the things in my bloggerly life:

• Mash Up Mondays (aka MUM): these days will be filled with the ins and outs of motherhood and marriage.
• Writing Wednesdays: yep, the same great info on writing with the same quirky anecdotes from my life. It’s how I roll.
• Frivolous Fridays: exactly how it sounds. Whatever tickles my fancy in terms of life, literature and liberty. Yeah, liberty. As in the things I feel passionate about like literacy, bullying, etc.

So there you have it. I’m moving on from infancy and heading toward toddlership. I’m trying to catch up with that boat before it completely leaves home port!

How do you handle those times your slow on the uptake? Do you find that realizing things a little too late is the end or a new beginning?

Curious minds want to know.

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Confession Time: Rebuilding My Brand

I hate to publicly admit my failures, but I’m going to do just that, right here for all the world to read.

When I started Words from the Woods, it was my private space. A place where I could go as a wanna be writer to connect with other wanna be writers ina way that didn’t intersect with my real life. And I did.

But slowly, more and more of me came out in my posts, and readers began telling me, “I read your blog to keep up with your family.” Or, “I love your insights into kids and relationships.” Over time, I’ve found myself catering to two vastly different readerships:

1. Those seeking posts on my quirky take on family dynamics, marriage, child-rearing and my unique soap box issues. Sure they enjoy the bits about the books I read, and more than a handful like to keep tabs on my writing. But, and here’s my public failure announcement, I didn’t start blogging with you in mind.
2. The people I initially blogged for were those seeking writing tips. Guess what? There are a thousand and one aspiring writer blogs (times infinity). In fact, I blog at a collective with that as the sole purpose. I’m also very active at AgentQuery Connect where, as a moderator, I provide real-time tips to writers nearly every day. Seems a little redundant, actually, to expend the energy regurgitating the information here. Which is likely why I haven’t been blogging as much recently. (Public failure announcement number two.)

All this got me thinking that it’s time I repurpose my blog. My future audience of book buyers is not writers themselves. Well, actually some are, but, as a whole, my future audience is parents. Parents and grandparents, or aunts and uncles, or godmothers and godfathers or teachers and librarians who are looking for WHY my books should be on their shelves. Not writers. Not unless you also have a child or twenty in your life that you wish to purchase books for.

I also happen to like talking about the things near and dear to my heart, like child-rearing, education, literacy, marriage, bullying and friendship. I’m a speech coach, a mother, a volunteer, a wife and a writer. I advocate for at-risk kids (the traditional kinds and the kinds we seldom consider) and do freelance writing on the side. Someday I want to have my books published and in the hands of the children you love. It is my ultimate goal.

But in the meantime, these other passions are also a part of who I am, and they impact why I write the things I do. These are the focus of my new journey in blogging.

Over the next week or so, you’ll see some changes to my blog as I begin rebuilding my brand. Not as a whimsical walk with an aspiring writer, but more so as a whimsical walk through the life of a parent writer.

I hope you stick around to see where this takes me. Personally, I’m both thrilled and terrified!

If there’s anything you personally would like to see me do more of (or not at all) let me know. Thanks for your support up ’til now and hopefully through this and beyond.

Hugs~

PS. I’ll completely understand if I some of you abandon this new brand. Just know you can always follow my writing words of wisdom at From The Write Angle or on AgentQuery Connect.