I am excited to be the May calendar girl for Arkansas Women Bloggers. And really, I never thought I would achieve this honor because I live in Texas. BUT, my Arkansas blogger friends know I’m an Arkansawyer at heart. Lately it seems I spend more time in Arkansas than Texas, either at our family farm in the Mississippi River Delta area or in Fayetteville. Or Little Rock. Or Mountain Home. Or Eureka Springs. Or Jonesboro. Or Piggott.
Really, I consider the entire state my home and count myself lucky to have dual blogger citizenship.
Once the excitement of being asked sank in, the most difficult part settled over me—writing an intro post about myself. This post. Writing about myself is not something I enjoy. Give me a crazy prompt, a first line, a strange word and I’ll throw together a piece of flash fiction or a poem. But tell us a little about yourself leaves me staring at a blank piece of paper.
What’s worth telling?
Last year while attending a writing retreat at Hemingway-Pfeiffer, I was charged with writing a six word memoir. Only six words to describe myself? Yikes! But here’s the thing…the beauty of memoir writing is the story can be an epic journey covering birth to death or a teeny sliver of time. As in six words’ worth…
The memoir I wrote provides a quick introduction to my current life.
Our nest is empty. I write.
Yep, these six words sum me up quite well.
Two and a half years ago, I left my banking career of twenty-plus years to write. The time felt right. (See, I even made a rhyme.) Our two children had flown the coop. T is finishing up his junior year at the University of Arkansas, and K is nearing the end of her first year at the University of Texas School of Law. (Can you say house divided?)
So now with an empty nest— and trust me you will survive toddler years, teenage angst, college entrance essays—I spend time pursuing my dreams. Writing. Gardening. Cooking. More writing. My cup truly runneth over.
I’ll be hanging out here during the month of May, and I hope you’ll join me. What will I write about? I’m not sure. But I can promise my posts will be in keeping with my general life theme of living simply and finding beauty in the ordinary, because that’s what I know these days.
If you’d like to check out my social media obsessions, here they are:
Instagram (new favorite thing), Pinterest (where my world is perfect), Facebook (the place I post too many dog pictures), Twitter (for stalking the Dallas Mavericks and Robert Griffin III), Google+ (which I don’t quite understand), Bloglovin (I sometimes forget I have) and of course, Grace Grits and Gardening.
My mom always told me I was special and I did ride a short bus to school (but our school was small) I’m a GenXer and owned a shirt that said “I’m a winner” (I even wore it on school picture day). So I have a natural complex, but it’s true.I am 1 in 14 million – cancer survivors. And a part of the 20% decline in cancer mortality rate since 1991.
The short version goes something like this:
my neck swelled up during a play
so I went to my doctor the next day
I told him I didn’t have time
but the diagnosis put a lot on my mind
a few connections got me in to see
the best doctor at LR Hematology and Oncology
chemo and radiation were my friend (not)
and after 6 months I was back on the mend
I lost my hair
didn’t really care
lost my voice
and started making noise
Remission was the word I heard him say
and 6 years later, I’m still clear today
That’s my rain storm.
It was full of “hail” and lightening; strong winds and torrential down pours (aka – my new emotional gushes). But, a storm is only as bad as you call it and allow its path to leave destruction.
It wasn’t until it was all over that I decided I wanted to wallow.I wanted the label, I wanted to
be recognized and respected for what I had “gone through”.I was trying to live like a warrior; a victorious warrior.But, I was being a cry baby and rather selfish.
Hopefully I’m not the only one who has Braveheart, The Patriot and Remember the Titans in my top 10 movies (yes, the rest are chick flicks…you have me pegged appropriately). But what I love about these 3 movies are the “game day” speeches as the turning point in the movie. All of them take place at dark, stormy, foggy moment. I lived most of 2009 in a fog. Call it remnants from “chemo brain”, but I’m more convinced that it was my own little pity party. I was too worried about the scars from the past to look forward and live beyond my storm.
In an interview on 103.7 The Buzz last week, Bret Bielema (yes I listen to sports radio while I drive) made 2 strong comments and, to me, neither is really about football –“history is something that has already happened. It’s great to read about, some people write about it and a lot of reporters talk about it. But, the people who live their dreams live in the present and try to concentrate on today and look forward and scars are a great reminder, they are markings of things that have happened in the past”.
I have a big scar on my chest. It’s a marking that cancer left beyond, but it’s also something I don’t even notice is there any more.
Until someone sees it for the first time or makes a comment about it, I forget it’s even there. It’s a part of who I am now. It’s part of my past, but it’s the perpetuator to how I move forward.
Life experiences do not have to be something we live in spite of.We can LIVE FULLY and like a warrior, we can live LIVE BEYOND.
For rainbows to show up after the storm, a little sun always has to shine.
Thanks for letting me hang out with you this month. April, the month of my birth and my cancerversary, always proves to be super busy and intentionally connecting with you each week has been my privilege. Make sure you stop by and see me sometime over at bigpittstop, my landingpad to the life beyond. (or you can chirp at me on Twitter or “see” me on Instagram)
NAME – it’s something you’re born into, something you’re given or in the case of social media, it’s something you pick for yourself.
Sometimes it fits like a cozy sock, slipping on and fitting tight as a glove. Sometimes it’s something you have to grow into like your dad’s clumsy shoes when your little and stumbling around the house.
Sometimes its representative of a time in your life of even better an embarrassing moment you had.
Maybe it’s my inner You’ve got Mail Meg Ryan psyche, but as social media continues to grow and we all have to keep developing our “handles”, I’m always curious what the letters and numbers that make up who we “are” to the world say about us. Of course, we all stay on heightened alert to not use any important numbers like our social security number, address or birthday (yes, those are all typical pin codes…be smart people!), but when you choose a number, I’m assuming it has to be something very important to you; and the letters even more significant.
BIGPITTSTOP – it’s a name that chose me.
My sister has always been the athlete in the family. And, when I say “the” athlete, I’m referring to the fact that only one existed. I’m clumsy and I don’t like to sweat; it’s a title she earned all on her own! She’s never been one to be called her actual name and you can tell what part of life people know her from based on the name they call her. But, the one that stuck for the majority of her life was lil pitt. When she started her freshman year of high school, I started my senior year. So, being the younger, and opposite, version of me she had to have her own identity. So, lil pitt stuck and somehow big pitt developed.
While I never really “went” by it, I kind a liked it because I knew to be big pitt, lil pitt had to be just around the corner…and I’m a BIG fan of lil pitt.
So, sometime later when I developed a landing page for my shutterfly photo account, I came up with my own combination – “big pitt” and “pit stop” and mashed them together. Seemed like a cheeky little play on words in an emerging “personalized” website forum. Yes, I’m talking like 2004.
March of 2008 came and I found myself quickly needing to develop one of those “blog things” to communicate a series of information to a large and somewhat anonymous group of people. I wasn’t interested in inundating my Facebook followers with the news of my recent cancer diagnosis, but I was also tired of sharing the same thing over and over. So, as I typed in “blogspot.com” for the first time, I felt the pressure of forming a creative name that might not just be representative of this “time” in my life but would be personal enough to be a space only I could use for a long time.
Drunk on the emotion of a tough diagnosis, I was stripped of creativity and normal thinking so I just went with something I already had created – bigpittstop. Made sense. Seemed short. So I hit submit and my blog world opened.
It wasn’t until a week later, while I was having a conversation with a way more savvy communications friend that I realized an underscored play on words that had organically come about. Cancer (which we’ll talk about next week) wasn’t going to get me… it was just a pit stop.
I’m not sure what a pit stop is to you – might be a gas station, a scenic pull off, or a friendly visit along the way to somewhere else. If you’re a NASCAR fan, you know a pit stop as a place where cars go to change tires, repair mechanics or sometimes even change drivers; all of which are necessary for optimum performance.
Wikipedia can give you way more strategic analogies than my life experience may have found. We’ve all be there. We’ve all gone through things that don’t seem to make sense. Our mechanics may have needed repairing, the tread on our tires may be been a little worn and the standard crowbar may not have been enough to get our hubcaps replaced. But, afterall, life is just a journey of pit stops that we are moving through to refuel for the next part of the drive! Live your journey BIG!
Written by Miss April 2014 Keisha Pittman of BigPittstop
Last Tuesday Northwest Arkansas experienced some crazy weather. As I was leaving town traveling to another part of the state I hit the crazy weather in waves. It was just beginning to rain as I left Rogers. By the time I got to Springdale, the clouds were gone and the sun was shining and in a matter of moments as I passed the Garland Ave exit coming in to Fayetteville, a series of dark clouds blew in and settled low.
With our topic this month on my mind and the wide open road of 540-S in front of me, I began to really think about life over the past 10 years. Somehow, the picture of my morning really seemed to play out. I’ve heard it said before of life that you are either in a valley, coming out of a valley, or about to head into one. Valleys, storms, sometimes they just kinda feel the same.
As a kid I can remember any time it rained, and the sun was out, I started looking for a rainbow. My dad is the one who helped me understand rainbows. Well, at least that when there was rain and sun, there had to be a rainbow somewhere. I’ve seen a full rainbow. One that stretches the horizon and makes you wonder if the pot of gold exists. And, I’ve seen the barely there rainbow; the one you have to get just in the right place to see.
You’re right; you know exactly where I’m going with this.
Life has a way of doing something very similar. We’ve all had the storm; a tough diagnosis, a change in family status, a big move or a trying day. Thunder, lighting, the big dark clouds. They all seem to roll in.
I’ve never been one much for a rainy day. Clouds make me tired, rain makes me wanna sleep and a combination of the 2 can just about put me in the sourest of moods. But, sunshine. I love sunshine. Vitamin D and I completely agree and I’m almost certain to have a big fat smile on my face when the sunny day rolls around.
But, life can’t be all sunshine and rainbows. Whether it’s to appreciate them when they come or to somehow know to distinguish the difference, we have to have to storms. We’ve gotta have the tough days, the trials, the hard times. For, it’s in those places that we discover the best of ourselves. We find out what we are made of and who will journey with us. We are refined.
April in Arkansas always tends to be a little treacherous. We spend a few more nights gathered close to the 10 o’clock news and loose a few good night of DVR space to recorded storm coverage. My life in April tends to feel something similar. Seasons change, life picks up and I somehow always go on record for declaring I’m going to cut something out that I never do.
I found it rather ironic last Tuesday, about 35 minutes into my drive Laura Story’s Blessingscame on the radio. If you are not familiar with the lyrics, the chorus says this:
What if your blessings come through raindrops?
What if your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you’re here?
What if trials of this life, are your mercies in disguise?
Not one much for being a fan of lemons or lemonade, I think I’m operate from here on our under the mantra – When life brews up a storm, start looking for the rainbow!
Every generation has a title; a label placed on them usually by the generation that follows. These labels are full generalities and certainties found generic of the largest portion of this aged group. We all know them – The Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials and Gamers (even my spell check wasn’t familiar with this one).
Best sellers, sociologists and educators try with invigorated rigor to “discover” the differentiating factors that tend to lead us all to a narcissistic, defensive place of not letting that label truly define our age group. And, I’ll admit, I’ve been and often still find myself among the groups of people fascinated by these generalities. I mean after all, there has to be something that explains why the large majority of us, in the core of who we are, are from the “world” we grew up in.
I’ll even go further and admit that during my years as Director of Admissions Counseling at the best college ever, I would look up the Beloit College mindsetson the incoming class. I wanted to know “who” they were, what they had always known and what had never existed to them. I’m fascinated with generational studies and if I were to ever go back to get my Master’s Degree it would probably hit that topic (I’m a complete nerd if anyone wants to pay me to go back to school!!!).
But, I’ve been thinking recently about those “things” that influence and morph our generation to fall into all these stereotypes. After all if I look at the description of the class of 2004, I’m reminded that we have always lived in a world where you could reproduce DNA in a laboratory, money always could be retrieved from an ATM machine, McGruff (a brown furry dog who walked upright in a detective trench coat) told us that smoking was really not a wise choice and we were all plagued that the world would end the year we graduated high school (#Y2K…could have been such a good way to start “the hashtag”!).
With the rise of social media and the development of all these incredible communication tools, I’m continually perplexed by one…Pinterest. Yes, I have one and yes I got sucked in to the home design ideas, garden party recipe board and I even pin things for someday when I might get to say “I do”. But, it all makes me wonder…
What will they say of the Pinterest Generation? Will they think we were super creative? Will they think our kids had the best birthday parties? Will they be amazed that we used an inordinate amount of burlap to throw and host weddings (can’t imagine the bell curve there)? Or, will we even remember in 3 years that we all had a slew of cheeky named “boards” that we “followed” and “contributed” to, all while trying to be the best version of whatever our current project held.
I mean think about it. My mom and I used to have to look through a 30 year collection of curriculum books in the summer to work on her preschool lesson plans for the next year. If I wanted to plan a party, I had to stroll the aisles of my favorite craft or Hobby Shop and cross my fingers that the girl who sat in the cubicle next to me at work could make something in Microsoft Publisher I could cut out and tape on construction paper to drop in the mail for my party. I don’t even want to know what Emily Post would say about my vintage chic collection conversation in the dorm room planning my college roommates’ wedding. And yet we’ve done it. We jumped hook line and sinker into a world of perfection. We ladies, and yes even a few gents, have taken the plunge and built ourselves into a box of comparison, value, and mis-measured self-worth.
I love to be as creative as the next girl. I like having one place to go to look for tablescapes, Easter menu ideas and spring trends. It’s convenient to carry all these on that smart, little device I carry in my back pocket. How great it was last week while I was stuck in an airport to have something “to do” (talking to my friends and people watching would just have been too exhausting). But, I want to be cautious and I want to be careful of the new measurement stick I’ve picked up.
We need a good reminder that our kids will remember that they had an awesome 3 year old birthday party even if the cute homemade tutu didn’t get made. A fruit salad at my backyard party will taste just as good as the rainbow fruit skewers I might be finishing at midnight (and less coffee and that puffy eye roller won’t have to be used). My sister got married in December without us actually doing anything we pinned last summer. You can’t be afraid to walk into Charming Charlie’s and just pick out a necklace. They wouldn’t be selling it if it wasn’t trendy.
So, what do YOU think they will say of the Pinterest Generation? (I told you I was going to ask for some input this month!) Prude? Perfectionist? Pretty?
Let’s gather the ideas, but make it ok to go to Brookshire’s and make it happen. Let’s dream big, but realize our friends might have even more fun if the party doesn’t look like its ready for a Martha Stewart Living spread. And for Pete’s sake, it’s still ok to call your mama for her corn dip recipe instead of trying to decide if a complete stranger has a better one. I mean how can you go wrong with Rotel, corn and cream cheese!
Just to start off, for clarification, I’m not the girl who uses a “$” in her name! But, I am a truth seeking, cancer fighting, Texas tune singing, grocery store shopping, Etsy store owning, scrap sewing, downtown alley photo taking, recipe redesigning, curious little rock star.
I see the power in repurposing.
The promise in college freshmen.
The refreshing nature of a Chick-Fil-A sweet tea.
The impact of an afternoon chat over a latte.
The progress of a downtown square.
I believe in Jesus Christ, a great playlist, sleeping late, drinking from a straw (you know, so you don’t stain your teeth) and the power of the human spirit.
I resist change but know it’s good. Feel my best when I’m giving. Revel in coffee dates, especially when the beans have a story. Think social entrepreneurialism and a 9:00AM start will be the fully changed face of the business world as the Baby Boomers all graduate to retirement (or being consultants while they get their nest egg back up). I’m convinced Zappos and Buzzfeed have figured out something genius about the work environment and think ecard billboards should be the wave of the future (I’m a fan of the cheeky comment!)
I’m random and eclectic. Planned and personable. I usually write half my blogs pecking one letter at a time on my iphone and edit them later (it’s 11:33PM and my phone is 3 inches from my face because I took my glasses off….I’m not even kidding). I get my nails and eyebrows done once a month and have worked a Massage Envy membership into my monthly budget. I pay my property tax with my previous year tax return and save the rest for a sunny day or mystery donations to my favorite causes.
I’m on the go, survive with a series of gadgets and think the greatest invention next to indoor plumbing was the Keurig and the iron skillet.
I blog about cancer because I kicked it in the tail. I tell stories about the single life because I can’t make this stuff up. I share recipes that I develop from the stuff on my pantry shelves. The other thoughts are just by-products of the journey.
So basically, I write when I can in my over programmed life. I fight cancer on all fronts. I have a goal to give away more than I keep (time, resources, and memories). I LOVE to make people laugh, like belly laugh and I’m super stoked to be Miss April and be among the awesome other chicks that I admire in so many ways.
April is the month of my birth. The month of my all-clear cancer-versary and the motto “no rainbows, no sunshine” is pretty much my version of “lemonade”. And, in case you are wondering, here’s my pin up photo!
If all that intrigues you, you can find me on my real day job – just bein’ me!
I promise to not always ramble about myself…actually this is pretty hard for me to do. So, stop by several times this month and see all the cool things these chicks have planned and I have a couple other posts coming up that I want your insights on!
Since we have arrived in Scotland, I have been writing between two and ten pitches every week to random companies trying to get them help us tell the story of our life here, while also promoting their hotel, hostel, tour guide or tour.
My pitches have improved since my first emails to the sunscreen company, but I still get mostly “nos” or “no reply.” For every fun trip I have written about on my blog, you can bet there are twenty trips I did not get to take.
(Remember how I said last time that things are not ever exactly as they seem.)
For me, all the pitching + sealing deals with people = EXHAUSTING.
Sometimes, I would rather just go on a free hike with my family on Saturday than beg, beg, beg for you to let me come stay in your hotel for a night so I can take/edit photos and spend hours writing copy that ends up reading like: Look At This Great Hotel We Got To Stay In For Free.
Because, hello BORING.
But even when I would publish (or just Instagram) pictures from hikes I would find that people often would say “Jealous!” or “I wish” or not anything. And that just made me sad.
My readers/followers and even my friends and family seem to somehow have a threshold for the number of pretty Scotland photos they care to see. (Go figure.)
After my Christmas storytelling project, I decided that I would continue to tell stories on my blog.
I thought I had been telling stories all along, but these were different. They stood out from the blog posts I had been doing lately in that they were mostly text instead of photos.
Mike suggested I tell stories once a week along a monthly theme. 12 Themes for 12 Months of Stories to follow up my 12 Days of Stories.
I began to play with this idea, but I wanted all the stories to tie together somehow. In fact, what I loved about Outdoorsy Mama + A Dreamy Life In Scotland was how it tied everything on my blog together. I still wanted an overarching theme.
But I wanted it to be something that was truly me.
And I wanted it to be something that I would not easily become bored with.
When I thought of it, I knew I had stumbled on exactly what I wanted my blog to be about in the next stage of my Blogger’s Journey.
I was walking everywhere since I had moved to Scotland. I was loving going for walks on the weekends in the woods and I knew I wanted to walk a lot of new cities this year. I love that in the UK, they refer to hiking as walking or hillwalking.
And I love that the idea of walking is so easily transferable to figurative journeys.
I started to write my introductory post about walking + storytelling. I already knew that I wanted to go on some really long walks in 2014 and that I was going to try to come up with a way to tag them all together. (I settled on #48Walks)
While I was writing, I realized that it would be so simple to invite others to do it with me!
I was so excited about this possibility that I just said, Join in! If you can think of a way to be a part of walking with me this year, then come on!
Honestly the idea was so new to me that I did not have time to create any rules or guidelines.
And here’s what really surprised me. People said yes. People started to tag their pictures with #48Walks. I set up a Facebook group and people joined it. I encouraged people to make a list of 48 walks they want to take this year, literal walks or figurative walks.
I started to write blog posts about the walks I am taking. And I started to write stories about walks of life. In January I told stories about Walking Towards the Unexpected. In February, I told stories about Walking in the Dark. This month I told stories about Walking in the Light.
Maybe when I look back on 2014, I will call it the stage of Walking + Storytelling.
Who knows? But for now, I have found a journey that I am loving and that others can share in, which just makes me giddy. Instead of seeing my picture of a walk I am taking and wishing you were there, I hope it encourages you to find a great walk of your own and show it to me. When someone snaps a picture of a walk they are taking in life and tags it for me to find, it brightens up my day.
As I have shared the story of my blog, you might have noticed that I kept a little bit of each phase along the way. Blogging (and the internet) is always changing, so it is great to experiment! In each phase, I try to keep what is helpful and leave behind what is not.
And even though I have made fun of some of the things I have done in blogging, I want you to know that when I see you trying something new on your blog, I think you are brave.
It’s important to me that you know that. Because there is a lot of comparison and meanness on the internet, you might think I am criticizing you. I promise that there is no question you could ask me about blogging that I would say was dumb. And after seven years of blogging, I know that if you have something special happening on your blog (or in your life) that you worked very hard for it. And that there are probably ten more opportunities you did not get.
Ultimately, I do not think there is any right or wrong way to go about blogging.
Which is the wonderful freedom about blogging, is it not?
I like to remember that my blog is my own creation and ultimately, I can do whatever I like with my little corner of the internet. I can try on lots of hats in that space until I find the one that fits me best. Some days I think the dashboard of my blog will continue to be a virtual costume changing room many years to come. And you know what, I am okay with that.
This post is the fourth in a series about my journey as a blogger. I just want to stop for a minute to thank you so much for coming along with me, for letting me tell the story of my blog and for your comments and encouragements!
A Blogger’s Journey: Definition and Purpose
Somewhere in the Show Me The Money phase of blogging, our family moved to Scotland. I immediately signed up to attend a travel blogging conference in order to learn where I could start getting Pounds Sterling for blogging instead of the dollars I was currently swimming in (sarcasm).
In order to get ready to go to this conference, I invested my blog savings of $150 and some money I earned from catering on a session with a blogger who is very open and honest about how she makes money on the internet. She details it all out and if you want to learn how to make money from blogging, you should read Sarah Von Bargen regularly and then do what she says. For me, the best thing I got out of doing the session with her was that she made me write down my dreams and plans for my blog. I had to answer lots of hard questions in order to sit down with her about where I was going.
Like, I had to actually say where I wanted to go.
I know that sounds simple, but I still cannot answer some of Sarah’s questions definitively. Let’s pretend I am a creative maker of jewelry and I would really love to sell it online. Then the purpose of my blog would be easy: Promote/Sell Jewelry. Then you add in all the other things around that purpose. Cute Outfit Of The Day posts that feature jewelery. Hello-I-am-a Real-Person-but-I-Like-To-Make-Jewelry posts.
I actually considered finding something to sell in order to have more “purpose” for my blog. (Note: I think this is a great way to make money as a blogger, but unfortunately, I did not want to sell anything.)
In my session with Sarah, she told me that she thought I should emphasize the details about my blog (and myself) that made me different. She recommended I push the Outdoorsy Mama, because there are lots of family blogs and lots of outdoor blogs but not necessarily that many people who are combining the two. She also gave me some suggestions for identifying myself in this way. (Release a Camping Menus eBook.) And she told me how to increase my presence on social media. (Be consistent. Be generous.)
photo by Whitney Loibner
So off to the travel conference I went as:
Stage 6: Outdoor Adventure + Family Travel Mama
Y’all, I even had cards printed.
One of the reasons I chose this particular conference was that a writer whose blog I really enjoy was speaking at two different sessions.
Somewhere in the middle of one of his talks, he confessed that he was not really making a living from blogging. In fact, he was barely scraping by with freelance jobs that were completely separate from his blog.
Let’s just revel in the irony of this for a minute, shall we?
I went to a conference to learn how to make money from blogging and to hear someone speak who was not making money blogging.
I still loved the conference. I enjoyed meeting people in the travel blogging industry. I love to travel and so did everyone I met. So that was fun. Also, I got to go on a free trip to the Northwest of Ireland as part of the conference. (Mesmerized By Free Stuff Stage 4: Resurrected!) I had the opportunity to pitch a room full of people in the travel industry who sponsor travel bloggers in which I learned that I never want to do that again. I attended talks on writing and pitching and storytelling and social media. I crammed my brain full and came back to Scotland completely overwhelmed.
I had lists of goals and plans. I made schedules and actually (kinda sorta) stuck to them. I started following all the rules I had learned from Sarah Von Bargen and from conferences.
I was blogging consistently (3-5 times per week) and promoting my blog on all the social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram). I was looking for guest posting opportunities to increase my Internet Presence.
Our family really does love hiking and the outdoors, so I was able to generate lots of content organically from how we spend our time.
I consistently posted pictures of our hiking and exploring in Scotland. Because we are living A Dreamy Life In Scotland and the world should want to know all about that, right? I no longer needed to chase the money. Soon I would be famous Outdoorsy Mama, and the money would chase me.
The funny thing about all the different clichés I bought (am currently buying) in to about blogging and success is that there are threads of truth in each of them. When I started trying to get free stuff for blogging, I really did get some free stuff. When I started trying to make some money blogging, I got a little money. When I started trying to increase my followers on social media, I was able to slowly but surely get those numbers to go up.
But threads of truth eventually unravel when you tug on them.
If you hear me say nothing else about blogging success, hear this:
Now I will tell you everything I know about how to be a HuffPo Blogger. I will tell you that in order to blog for the Huffington Post, all you have to do is email Arianna Huffington. She is the only big name in the blogging world that I have encountered who actually answers Every Single Email She Receives. Which I think is very kind, by the way. She is bestowing mad amounts of dignity upon those of us who are sending eleventy million emails into the universe. Thank you, Arianna!
If she likes your blog, she will send you off to one of her reps depending on the topic you would like to blog about and they will set you up with a log in and Voila! You are now a Huffington Post Blogger. You can write something and submit it. And if it is not total crap (grammatical errors and such) and you have followed their clear guidelines (size of pictures and such), it will be published on their site. And maybe some people will read it. But mostly do you know who will read it? The people that you send there when you put the link on your Facebook page.
I’ll pause while you take back your amazement.
But still, I am doing some very fun things for free this spring because in an email I said, I am a Huffington Post Blogger.
Almost everything in blogging is like this in that in some way, things are not exactly as they seem.
Y’all I try to be a really honest blogger. I want to be authentic. I really do.
But in blogging, as in life, we are telling a story (whether we define it or not) and for the past year or so, my story has been Outdoorsy Mama who is living A Dreamy Life in Scotland. If this is the story I am wrapping my blog around, I am not going to tell you that last week after four days of rain, I could not get out of bed. Or that I stayed awake all night from anxiety about something that was going on with one of my children.
Instead, I am going to keep on telling the (photo heavy) story of A Dreamy Life in Scotland.
photo by Whitney Loibner
And if that is the purpose of my blog, as defined by myself in previous planning sessions, then I am not being untrue to myself by continuing to tell that part of the story.
Because I am Outdoorsy. And lots of things about life in Scotland are pretty dang amazing.
However in November, I began to notice that my blog readership and (more importantly) blog engagement (commenting + sharing) was going down instead of up.
More importantly, I started to feel like maybe I was bored with it.
I was very excited about defining myself as Outdoorsy Mama who Moves To Scotland, and it was helpful for pitching my story to others to have given my blog a general theme. Or niche.
But I think maybe I concentrated on fitting this niche so much that I lost the story.
So next week I am going to tell you how I found a new stage of blogging that I am really excited about: Storytelling.
Do you have questions about any of the stages of blogging I’ve mentioned as I’ve shared my journey of blogging? I would LOVE to hear them and I’ll do my very best to answer!
If you’re feeling super brave, I would love to hear your experience of how something about your blogging is “not exactly as it seems?”
So last week I talked all about how I was Mesmerized By Free Stuff in Stage 4 of Blogging, but then I started thinking that maybe in addition to candles, people should give me Cold Hard Cash.
Stage 5: Show Me The Money
And y’all, let me just be honest: here’s where it gets ugly.
I hear you asking, By ugly, do you mean all those ads that were on the sides of your blog?
Well, yes, because those can be ugly, but actually no, because what happened inside of me was far uglier than Adsense.
Because here’s the thing.
Somehow, when I was just blogging for Free Stuff, I actually liked what I was blogging about. I really did LOVE Moss Mountain Farm. I would go there again tomorrow if Mimi would just fly me over from Scotland.
But when I started chasing the money in blogging, I was haphazard and ridiculous, and the lack of financial success in blogging caused me to have a lot of self-loathing.
At first I joined lots of affiliate programs (like this one) where you put company ads on your sidebar and if people buy stuff by clicking on them you get like ten cents. Well, as you can imagine, that did not make me very much money. In fact, I could be totally wrong about this, but I finally decided that the main purpose these ads serve is to make others think that your blog is professional.
Oh, I saw you had ads on your blog now!
You must be big time!
Yes, thank you very much. I made two dollars this month and only because when I saw my mother was ordering something from Amazon anyway, I asked her to please click through from my website first.
Next, I found some other sites that are dedicated to helping you make money as a blogger. The first one was Collective Bias. Opportunities would pop up on the home page of the program (or you could have them emailed directly to you) where you could apply to be a blogger for a product. In the space of about six months, I probably applied for about fifty of these opportunities and I was accepted for two of them. In both cases, I was sent to buy a product, which I blogged about and then I was reimbursed for the cost of the product and paid a fee for having blogged about it. I think I made $50 for blogging about Colgate and $100 for blogging about a camera. Plus of course I got the toothpaste (long gone) and the camera (collecting dust). Let’s not dwell on all the time I spent putting together those posts + applying to the other 48 opportunities that I did not get, because we will probably discover that $150 comes out to about forty cents an hour. Yikes.
I know this is a hideously tedious amount of detail, but it is this kind of information that I was searching for from others in my Show Me The Money blogging phase. And honestly, it just was not out there.
I combed other blogs (including many of yours) looking for how people were making money in blogging. And people do not really say. In fact, if you visit my blog today, you might come away thinking that I am trying to give the impression of a blog that is making money but I just need to tell you that it is not really making money. I think I have still bought in to the idea that having a blog that looks like it is making money is the key to having one that actually does make money. I call it Fake It ‘Til You Make It. But friends, come back in six months and I may not have all that jazz on there anymore.
I might be in a different stage by then.
The good news is that even though I would still very much appreciate making money from blogging, and I can still be very haphazard, I have, for the most part, left behind the self-loathing.
But again, I am getting ahead of myself. Come back next week and I will tell you all about learning To Define Myself As A Blogger.
Do you have questions or helpful info about making money from blogging? Please share in the comments!
Photos this week are from photo shoots with one of my fav Arkansas Bloggers, Whitney Loibner. The top one is an old What I Wore Wednesday photo featuring Country Outfitter Boots and the second pictures is my mama and me enjoying some Petit Jean Hot Dogs! LOVE!
And by Superstar, of course I mean, A Blogger who gets Free Stuff.
Like I said last week, I was just plugging away, writing my little heart out about why we should all eat more green vegetables (or whatever) and one day I got an email inviting me to an event as a Blogger.
It was from Mimi San Pedro representing P. Allen Smith. I immediately sent it to my friend Sarabeth with a big IS THIS IMPORTANT? in the subject line and she told me she was not sure but that I should just go. Soon, Jerusalem and I realized we were both invited and we heaved big sighs of relief and made plans to go along together to Moss Mountain Farm.
This next part is important, y’all:
I had absolutely no idea what I was going to.
Seriously.
I had never been invited to an event as a blogger before and I did not have any clue that bloggers were sometimes Given Nice Things For Free.
I need you to know that it was by ignorance, friends, and not audacity that I found myself at the gorgeous magazine spread that is P. Allen Smith’s house armed with nothing but a point and shoot camera and a flip phone.
Gals, I did not even have a Smart phone. It was 2012, but I was resisting. What can I say? However, I was nothing if not resourceful. I joined in with everyone else on Twitter because I had learned to tweet via text message on my Razor.
I’ll pause for you to Be Very Impressed.
I loved every minute of my time at Moss Mountain Farm, and not just because it was a blogging event. That place is amazing. The food, the décor, the chickens! P. Allen Smith gave us a personal tour and I could have listened to him talk all day long. He told stories while Mimi kept us on schedule with her clipboard.
At one point, we were interviewed by cameramen while we had drinks on the lawn with live music. I was star struck. Jerusalem and I both felt like we had hit the jackpot.
On the way home, with my goodie bag full of loot in my lap, I decided that I was now a blogging star. Jerusalem told me she would lend me some pictures so that I could properly write up my day.
I could not wait to get started on my post about Moss Mountain Farm, alternately titled: Look What I Got To Do Because I Am Such A Fabulous Blogger.
Upon writing it, I decided I had officially moved into a new phase of blogging.
I blogged about all the parts of going to P. Allen Smith’s house that I enjoyed, which was, of course, EVERYTHING.
Then my brain quickly moved on to this brilliant line of thought:
If someone gave me a candle and some boots because I am a blogger, I bet I can get some more stuff because I have a blog. Wait a minute! I have already blogged about my favorite sunscreen. I should get that sunscreen for free!
Dear Sunscreen Company,
I am a blogger and I love your sunscreen. I will blog about it some more if you send it to me for free. Here is my address.
Signed,
A Very Important Blogger
I wish that I could tell you that I did not send about eleventy million emails that looked almost exactly like this. If you went through the Sent Messages folder in my inbox from the last two or three years, I can tell you exactly what you would say,
Bless her heart.
I did get a few free things this way, which just added fuel to the fire of my ludicrously bad pitching habits.
It was around this time that I joined Arkansas Women Bloggers. And I went to a conference where I got More Free Stuff, also sometimes called Swag.
I embraced the writing about free stuff with abandon, partly because I am just a writer. Give me something to write about and I will go for it.
Tea?
Candles?
Boots?
Bacon?
Bring it on, y’all!
After about a year I started to wonder if instead of just Free Stuff, I could actually get something even more valuable for blogging.
Like actual money.
Hot diggity. I’m all out of time for this week folks, but come back again next time to learn how to Become Rich And Famous* Like Me.
*Disclaimer: Rich and Famous might be a slight exaggeration.
Go on and tell me. What’s the best FREE thing you ever got for blogging? You’re among friends here. Brag away.
my neck swelled up during a play
