HAPPY MONDAY friends!! Did you all have a great weekend? I know I sure did! The weekend started off a bit rocky with me picking up Ashton at daycare on Friday afternoon and him quickly throwing up ALL OVER ME! I will spare you the details, other than to say it was not how I pictured my Friday afternoon looking. Anyways, he was thankfully better by Saturday morning and we went to swim lessons where he started a new class and swam all alone without Robyn or I in the pool with him. It was awesome and terrifying all at the same time!
We also had a toddler birthday party and a lot of park/outdoor play time. All in all it was a great weekend! So, today instead of doing my usual Monday morning Weekly Recap post, we are going to switch things up a bit! Why? Well, earlier last week while I was checking my email I noticed I received a message from one of my favorite bloggers, Mike from Running Around the Bend. Of course, I quickly opened it to see what it said. Mike had been invited to participate in a Blog Writing Process Tour by Susie (another awesome blogger I follow) and he was paying it forward and inviting me to participate in it. I had two very quick thoughts in rapid succession, first, I was really honored he would ask ME, I mean, there are a TON of other really cool bloggers out there. Second, what was this tour really about? I continued to read the email and basically, by answering a few questions, I divulge all of my top secrets to you.
- Acknowledge the blogger/blog that invited you to the Tour.
– Answer some questions about your blogging process
– Choose 3 bloggers to plug, give a short bio of the blogs and link to their sites.
Similar to what Mike and Suz did, I am going to rearrange and regroup some of these so it flows better. Why reinvent the wheel when they did it so well the first time? So, let’s get started.
Background & My Nominations
As I mentioned above Mike invited me to this tour via Suz. You can check out both of their posts here and here. I’ve asked Meranda, Jenna, and Olena to participate in the tour. I’m really interested to see how they manage their process along with their busy lives!! They are all really amazing women and bloggers, so please go check them out!
My Writing Process
So here are the questions I was asked to answer:
1. What am I working on?
This is a pretty loaded question and the one I was the most nervous to answer. I guess the simplest answer is I am working on me. I want to be the best possible version of myself. At home, I want to be a kind, caring, patient (hardest thing for me), loving, fun, and adventurous wife and mom. I want Robyn and Ashton to be proud of me and to continue to build a home full of lot of love and laughter. At work, I want to continue to grow and learn and work on things that matter, invigorate and challenge me. I have some very specific goals I am working towards career wise and everything is falling into place right now, which feels good. Fitness wise, I want to constantly be making improvements. I want to get faster in my running. I want to lift heavier. I want to hold a one-legged crow pose for more than 10 seconds. I want to continue to build strong relationships with you all because I feel like I have found an awesome little online family and I enjoy interacting with you all so much. I want to continue to be a great friend and confidant to my friends and family. I want to push the limits in all aspects of my life and see what I can accomplish. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take…I don’t want to look back 1, 5, 10 years from now and regret that I didn’t do something I have always wanted to do or that I didn’t give 100% to everything I tried. I expect that there will be failures, and I want to learn from them and use them to make me a better, stronger person. And I want to blog about a lot of this stuff along the way too! That is what I am constantly working on. Pretty simple, right?
2. How does my work differ from others of its type/genre?
I’m not an elite athlete, I can’t run a 5 minute mile, I am just ME…a wife, mom, and working professional who happens to love taking about running, fitness and my family. There are a million other blogs just like mine out there. I guess what distinguishes me from everyone else is my experiences and my voice. We all come from different backgrounds, have had different life experiences that color the way we see the world and have different goals. We all have different writing styles, purposes for our blogs, things that drive and motivate us. This is just my tiny little corner of the internet where I use my voice to discuss the things that means something to me.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I had been reading a handful of running blogs for close to 4 years and always found myself feeling inspired and loved reading about others experiences. I had tossed around the idea of starting my own blog quite a few times but I got nervous thinking it was way too much work or I wouldn’t have the skills to get it up and going and of course, what would I talk about and who would read it? Finally after doing a lot of research, I threw caution to the wind and started this little blog last September. I decided I was going to write about all the things I was passionate about…running and general fitness training, my struggles and successes, my family, friends, work and anything else that was on my mind. At the time, I really needed a creative outlet and I figured if no one read it, it would serve as an online diary of sorts that I could look back and reflect on. I am SO glad that less than a year later, I have this incredible group of readers friends with diverse backgrounds and interests that I truly enjoy interacting with and learning more about everyday. You perspectives make me a better, more knowledgeable person, so thank you!
4. How does your writing process work?
My process is that I don’t really have a process, I just write in the moment for the most part. I don’t schedule posts weeks or days in advance. I usually write them the morning they post or sometimes the night before, but 95% of the time, I write them in the morning and hit publish. I don’t revise and edit other than for grammar or spelling errors. I typically write off the cuff and speak like I would if I were chatting with you face to face. My writing isn’t very technical and I don’t spend time pouring over my word choice, I just let it go where it does in my head. I don’t have a long list of things I want to blog about (although I wish I did because sometimes I draw a blank.) I usually just write about my life, what’s going on in the here and now, although if I read something that I want to talk about, I will. This is one of the few things in my life that isn’t really planned out, I just go with the flow. I don’t want this to ever feel like an obligation, if that makes sense. I want to write about the things I want to write about when they interest me. Pretty simple and straightforward!
Well, that’s it! Thank you again Mike for inviting me to participate in this great tour and don’t forget to check out Meranda, Jenna, and Olena!
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Question of the day
What made you want to start blogging? Do you have a writing process of do you “wing it” like me?
