It's summer holiday, and with three Hufflings underfoot for nine weeks in a row, plus Ziggy the Office Dog, I have a lot going on. Chris is home this week. My parents are flying in for a visit on Monday. I am busy.
Even when none of this is happening, and it's just me and Ziggy (when the children are happily and safely at school for seven hours of the day), I still have running group and book club (both of which totally make me sound entitled), but also two boot camps that I run, a weekly fitness class to teach, training a client or two, and my increasing number of writing/editing contract products and hours to fulfill, as well as the writing that I am really trying hard to do for myself and for publications like Medium. And don't get me started on SEO and social media presence for myself. (Actually, please get me started on SEO and social media presence for myself - what's the old saying about shoemakers' kids going barefoot?)
Waaaaay back in 'ought seven, it was just me and Chris. I had just started my first government job. It was in a fancy, important office, and I was on the lowest rung of the ladder, which I described as "Chipmunk* at the bottom of the office totem pole". I did some scheduling and document review, and had to be ready for more of the same -- always potentially urgent -- often until an hour or two after my scheduled workday. Due to the almost-everyday-regularity of the overtime requests, I asked if I could just come in at 10 am and stay till 6 every day, or 11 to 7 -- but no, I had to be there "just in case". I asked for extra work and responsibilities, and only sometimes was given those. So, I sat. I did my work quickly and well, and between tasks, had time to email friends, plan a wedding and start a blog.
With our moves, I often ended up with bottom-chipmunk jobs, and each time, I did the job well, took on extra, but always had -- and I'm not exaggerating -- at least three hours a day of Not Work (but usually five).
And thus the blog was born! I was away from friends and family, and decided that I had missed the "Facebook window", so the blog was how I showed our changing lives and growing kids, how I shared my experiences. How I told my story.
With harder/better jobs at higher levels (I think I can proudly state that, while my last position was definitely not at the Thunderbird/Raven level, it was safely at least at Bear) came more work -- which totally makes sense and helps explain the difference in salary -- my email, external planning and blog time was cut way back. And somehow, now that I'm freelancing upwards of four hours a day and in charge of my own schedule...and have three kids muppeting around my "home office" all day...I have little to no time to do this.
The difference between writing for my blog and writing for publications is simple. I want to write my blog. I want to write my articles, too, but I sort of "need" to write the articles to make money, so the blog falls on the wayside.
This feels like goodbye.
It sounds like I'm trying to tell you that my blog is over, or at least on hiatus. But, boy, is my tone off this time! I will try to do better. I will try to overcome myself, plan and schedule my posts in advance, all while upping my Twitter game and integrating SEO in a perfectly-natural-yet-effective way.
I just need to transfer writing for my blog over to the "life" side of my work-life balance.
Yeah. This totally could happen.
Do you have any tips or tricks to share to make my own writing a priority?
(That don't involve plugging children into screens, please.)
* For the sticklers, no, chipmunks are not usually represented on totem poles. Thus was my importance.
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