Consider yourself warned. This week’s obsessions are pretty introspective. They also revolve around a common theme: authenticity.
1. What Do I Want Inward Facing Girl to Be?
I’ve spent a lot of time this week thinking about what I want my blog to be – the content, the tone, the look, the end result…basically everything.
Every week I read tons of great blogs. I’ve read and listened to some great advice from one of last week’s obsessions, Design for Mankind‘s Erin Loechner. By the way, Erin is super friendly and happy to answer questions via email. Thanks, Erin!
I read a tremendously inspiring and authentic post by Jenna at Sweet Fine Day with great closing lines. “Being a mother isn’t what defines me. It’s part of who I am, but it isn’t what defines me. I get to decide what does.”
After a lot of reading and a lot of thinking, I’m pretty sure that I know what I want to do with Inward Facing Girl. Basically, I want to stay on my current path. I like that my blog isn’t attached to one specific niche. I like that I can write about an art exhibit, a trip to Portland, something awesome that Nathaniel did, share a cool article from Hello Giggles, rave about Being Erica, and show you stuff from cool shops in Silverlake all in the same blog. I want to continue to showcase cool design, art, media, and other stuff, but I also want to keep showing you what happens when I stop being polite and start getting real.
Okay, now that I’ve decided what I want my blog to be, what about the rest?
Life is full of obligations and desires. It’s super hard to fit everything in, especially now that I’m the mother of the world’s most wonderful child. Seriously…this kid is so much fun.
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| Adorable, even with a nose full of mucus and macaroni. |
Now I just need to figure out how to be a wife, mother, work a full-time “day job,” and put as much as I can into becoming a professional blogger/photographer/graphic designer/collage artist/Etsy seller.
Lucky for me, I have lots of project management experience. Scheduling, timelines, organization, deadlines…we go way back. This week I’m going to:
- Create a schedule to make sure that I fit in all of my creative work each week (blogging, graphic design, photography, collage).
- Create a marketing plan and schedule (those blog comments, tweets, and Facebook posts don’t write themselves).
- Develop and start using some type of editorial calendar for my blog (allowing for spontaneity, of course).
- Schedule some time for weekly research (I didn’t just make all this stuff up on my own, you know).
Part two of this obsession has to do with putting it all out there and then letting it go. Yes, I look at Google Analytics and Blogger stats every day to see where my hits are coming from, if they’re increasing or decreasing, which posts have attracted the most readers, what key words bring people to my site, etc. I know myself well enough to know that I won’t be letting that part go. It’s too much fun to watch. I’m more interested in jettisoning the expectations and outcome part.
This week I read a wonderful post on Schoolhouse Craft by Kate Endle that helped me move into that mindset. It takes time to grow a blog. I love doing it. I’m having so much fun working on it. I just need to work as hard as I can and then let it happen. If you build it, they will come, right? That’s from some movie. I think it’s about baseball…Bull Durham? I don’t know. I never saw that movie. My mom said I would like it. I wonder if it’s too dated?
P.S. I love Kate’s whimsical style !
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| Crow Baby Print by Kate Endle on Etsy |
3. Purging
Kind of hand in hand with my first and second obsessions, this week I’ve also been thinking about paring down.
Between blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and newsletters I am constantly bombarded with more information than I could ever possibly act on, listen to, stare at longingly, or read. I’ve started a social media semi-cleanse (Missing my Yelp check-ins yet, Facebook and Twitter friends?), and now I’m working on paring down the list of blogs and Twitterers I follow, Safari and Springpad bookmarks I collect, and Facebook “likes” and “friends.”
Poll for people on Facebook: Do you periodically go through your list of Facebook friends and delete some of them? What is your criteria for deletion? Is defriending rude or necessary? Let me know what you think in the comments section or start a discussion on the Inward Facing Girl Facebook page.
4. Making Real Connections
Obsession number four is about both the blog realm and the physical world.
How cool is it to make new friends? It’s just seems like that doesn’t happen as often the older you get. I’m lucky that I have made some wonderful friends during my lifetime. I’m unlucky because most of them don’t live in Seattle. You rancid people know who you are.
I think it’s really awesome that we can use blogs and social media to reach out to interesting and creative people all over the world. How cool is it to have a Twitter conversation about art with a stranger who lives across the country? I would have loved having the interwebs when I was growing up in a pasture.
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| Seriously. I’m not kidding about the pasture. |
Since I’ve been living in Seattle, I’ve actually had the opportunity to meet and hang out with some of the people that I first started chatting with on blogs and Twitter. Hi Annie and Amy! It’s interesting and fun to meet people that you “know” from the internet. Since you do sort of know each other, or at least know some things about each other, you can jump into a conversation like you just talked a few days ago.
Looking at real connections from a blogging standpoint, I’d really like to have a community around my blog and interact with the people who read it. That’s what spawned the idea of creating an accompanying Facebook page. I hope that readers will use it to connect with each other, talk about some of the posts, use it to come up with creative ideas, whatever. It would be super fun to have that kind of interaction.
There’s also the “one of the best ways to get more readers is to make more connections in your blogging community” aspect. One of the most common pieces of advice to bloggers who are trying to grow their fan base is to comment on other blogs. If the person who is giving you this advice actually gives you good advice, they’ll be sure to tell you to do this in a genuine and meaningful way.
I have no interest in commenting on a bunch of blogs or tweeting a bunch of people for the sole purpose of marketing my blog. If I’m going to make a comment on someone’s post or start a conversation with a fellow Tweeter (or is it Twitterer?), it’s because I’m genuinely interested in what they’re doing or saying. Do I want more readers? Of course. Would I be happy if tweets or comments gave me more readers? Absolutely. But randomly tweeting and commenting on every possible thing remotely related to my blog is not something I’m interested in at all.
Whew! This obsession post is starting to feel heavy. Let’s switch it up!
5. Super 8
Drew and I finally went to see a movie in a theater for the first time since February. Seriously…where has the time gone? We chose Super 8 and I’m so glad that we did. It was FANTASTIC. The writing, acting, directing, cinematography…everything was amazing and it was so much fun to watch.
And speaking of authenticity, Super 8 is the real deal. I actually felt like I was watching a movie that was filmed in 1979 or the early 80s. Watching it brought back the feeling of sitting in the movie theater and seeing E.T. for the first time. E.T. was warmer and fuzzier of course, but while Super 8 was produced by Spielberg, it was written and directed by J.J. Abrams (who can be warm and fuzzy, people…there was awesomeness prior to Lost!).
Anyway, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, go. Then watch E.T. Or The Goonies. Or Stand By Me. I am. Now all of this talk is making me want to watch The Lost Boys. This 80s movie fest is going to cut into my productivity.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnnS2LWiMg?rel=0&hd=1]