Testing, testing... Is this thing on?

Whiishhhh....

That's the sound of me blowing the dust off of my keyboard and getting ready to start writing again.

Not that I ever really stopped. For the past 6 years I was a partner and content manager for a family of websites, FamilyFuninPA.com and FamilyFuninNJ.com. I wrote and/or edited content and social media posts every day. I recently resigned from that position, which was a hard decision, but I do believe it was the right one for me, and especially for my family. It had become all-consuming and I was burned out -- but that is a topic for a future post.

I've actually been itching to write again. I love the process. I love sculpting a paragraph out of a mass of jumbled thoughts. I love finding the right words to communicate ideas clearly. I love making people laugh through carefully worded observations. Up until now, though, I feel like I have been lacking 3 things necessary for actually being an effective writer: Inspiration, Knowledge, and Time.

Inspiration -- I have friends who have been inspired to write novels. This is really not something that I can imagine myself doing. My inspiration comes in small, disjointed waves; I can't imagine being inspired enough to stick with a story line for much more than 140 characters, really.

I actually did start this blog about 8 years ago, but I kept posts mostly private and used it as a personal journal. (In looking back at the posts -- most of them are crap. They're full of the angsty whining that is so common in "mom blogs" these days. I'm not going to subject anyone else to them, ever.) Writing a blog and putting your thoughts and feelings out on the internet for the world to see is a very vulnerable thing. But I've been inspired by my good friend Jillian who recently started her own blog: http://www.beingjill.com. She has had no qualms about putting herself out there, and the world is better for it!  

I've also been inspired by some editors of national publications who told me that my article submissions would be a lot more valuable to them if I had a blog with actual FOLLOWERS. It's all about the SEO in the online world. So... here I am.

Knowledge -- This goes hand in hand with inspiration, really. How can you write something that the world would be interested in reading if you don't feel like you are an expert in anything?  At one point I wrote a monthly column for our local paper; at the time, I was sort of an expert on my subject matter, because it centered on helping local parents find cool things to do with their kids -- and I was still in the thick of finding cool things to do with my kids. Plus, because of my work with my website I was very familiar with the local offerings. Two things happened, though: My kids grew older, of course, so I was not going to the places I was writing about anymore. And also, living in a small town, there aren't THAT many new & different offerings -- once I covered them all, there was not much more to write about. 

I've only recently started realizing that, perhaps through sheer AGE, I've accumulated more knowledge -- and wisdom, which is a completely different thing -- than I usually give myself credit for, and I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe, if I can find the right way to express it, something I know can actually help someone else out there.

Time -- This has been my biggest issue up to this point. When I was still co-managing a small company, I found it very hard to turn off my work. There was so much to keep up with: a lot of social media posts to write, events to post about, invoices to send, technology issues to help resolve, meetings to run, newsletters to write, etc. I am finally finding myself with some guilt-free time to focus on myself and I am determined to use that time wisely as I figure out what's next for me.

So, now I find myself making a New Year's Resolution of sorts, even though it is March. That resolution is to spend a little bit of time each day just writing down my thoughts with the goal of turning out something worth sharing. Here goes... something!