To Write is To Write

Happy Anniversary to My Blog!

Okay, so I almost forgot my own blog's anniversary!  (Not that that is a surprise...I am so bad at remembering those types of things!  If I was a man and my blog was my girlfriend, she would be p-oed, right?  Well, thankfully, my blog has no feelings and can't get mad at me!)

On April 6th, 2005, I started my blog and here it is one year later already!  Check out my first post to learn more about my original intentions with my blog.  And then check out this post to see how I have made it into what it is today!

As I head into this next year, I hope to bring you more personalized posts of my writing and freelance public relations journey.  It seems to me from my first post to my "goals" post, I have become a bit dry, don't you think?  Well, perhaps, that is the natural progression of things?? 

Well, thanks for reading everyone!  I appreciate it,  and I love hearing from all of you! 

Goals

I've heard now that some of my blog readers who have been reading my blog for a while are confused as to what it is turning in to.  As I have been changing its focus, I don't blame anyone for wondering why the content is changing. 

Today, I wanted to clarify a bit by posting about my freelance goals and goals for this blog.  First, my ultimate goal with my career is to eventually have a sustainable and successful freelance PR and writing business.  I love, love, love public relations and truly believe in the benefits of utilizing public relations in business.  And with the advent of blogs, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, wikis, and my obsessive desire to understand and use blogging and the Internet in the world of PR, I want to use this blog as a tool to highlight my skills and knowledge of public relations and to, ideally, assist in bringing freelance work my way. 

Because of this, I send folks interested in public relations and business blogging to this blog to learn more about it and how it can benefit their business.  Therefore, readers will notice more information on the world of public relations and the tools that are utilized in PR.

In addition to PR freelancing, I have goals of becoming a writer in more of the journalistic sense.  Utlimately, I would like to land some travel writing gigs along with doing some writing on other topics as I have highlighted on my About page.  I have a very strong passion/desire to travel and explore other cultures around the world and would like to be able to bring some of my travel experiences to others that may not be as fortunate as I am to travel to these areas.  Also, I have dreams of writing memoir--travel and otherwise.  I have many stories to tell that seem to get shoved aside by my day-to-day life.  Therefore, I will use this blog to highlight my journey on working toward these goals as well. 

Now, I have thought about changing my blog name several times to something more appropriate to the PR aspects of this blog.  But, ultimately, this blog is about my journey into freelancing (whether that is in the PR arena or on the journalistic side), so it is going to stay as is (or at least it will until something/someone else convinces me otherwise). 

So, does that clarify things a bit?  I hope so.  If anyone has suggestions as to the content of the site, please let me know.  I would love to hear from you!

Tags:

Public Relations Writing Freelance Freelance Writing Freelance PR

This Blog's A-Changing, And I'm Startin' a New One

As you have probably already noticed, I haven't been been blogging lately.  I have been crazed at work and have not taken a lick of action on my writing/consulting journey.  It's funny how life gets in way of all the things that you would much rather be doing.

It is not to say that I have not been concentrating my mental energies on my writing journey and my freelancing future.  The thoughts of the things that I really want...my travel writing and my freelancing business...are forever at the forefront of my mind.  Most days, the fact that I am not concentrating on my journey consumes me.  My figurative stack of dusty to-do's is piling up in my head, and it nags at me...constantly.

In the midst of the mayhem at my day job, I have been thinking long and hard about the focus of this blog.  To Write is To Write  started out as a medium to post about my writing journey, specifically my travel writing, and slowly started to include facets of my PR life.  As I have been sending more and more folks here for my PR capabilities, it seems as if I need to segment the topics.  So, I have decided to start a new blog (yeah!) called "The Midwest Traveler" to highlight my travel writing/writing and leave this blog to focus on public relations.

The Midwest Traveler blog will feature my travel adventures in, around and out of the Midwest.  It will also have travel information and resources for travel around the Midwest.  I named my new blog the "The Midwest Traveler" because I am a native Midwestern girl, who finds herself in a love/hate relationship with the Midwest.  I love to travel outside of the Midwest for many reasons, but find myself traveling mostly only in the Midwest.  I have always longed to live outside the Midwest, but always find myself staying living in the Midwest for some good reason or another.  Therefore, as I continue to my journey on becoming a published travel writer, I thought what better way to highlight my experiences, my adventures and my writing than to write about the part of the world that I love and hate all at the same time.

So, if you are interested in checking out my (travel) writing, I have posted a link to "The Midwest Traveler" on my sidebar in the "Writer's Blogs."

Otherwise, stay tuned for changes to "To Write is To Write" as I turn it into a bigger and better resource for public relations and my freelance PR work.

To all, thanks for hanging in there with me!  My blogging guilt has been killing me, but I am back!

Great Ideas, Good Writer = This Blog and A New Adventure

My first post on my new blog!  Aaahhhh!  It feels so good to start ANEW.

Some descriptors and some context, I guess, are in order.  Here's the download! 

I expected to be a bit happier when posting my first message, but nonetheless, here I am.  The reason for my bummer mood...I had a great idea for a newspaper article today...I've been thinking about it all day!  The thought of pitching the story, getting the go-ahead and writing about something that I care about kept me going through the endless hours of my work day.  While shuffling e-mails, exchanging phone calls, drafting talking points, nagivating through numberous groups' interests, revising, revising, revising my work (so that it is no longer my words on the page...oh, the joys of PR) to organize one of my client's upcoming news conferences, I tossed around angles to my news article that I was so eager to get home and pitch to the editor tonight.

See, by day,  I am a young, passionate, very idealistic -- yet, overworked, underappreciated, not-to-mention extremely underpaid -- PR professional trying to find my place in this big, bad, cynical world.   

(And, by night, well three nights a week anyway, I swing drinks and throw around food at a Twin Cities surburban, corporate restaurant, adorned a name synonmous with a place known as "Down Under" to actually make some dollar bills, in order to fend off the bill collectors and attempt to live my champagne dreams).

But, my true calling, or what I deamed to be my true calling, is writing--freelance writing--travel writing really...with a plethora of other types of writing that are of interest.   So, today, as I drudge through my daily work chaos, I zoned in on happy thoughts, about pitching a story to the locally run "Women's Press" about women bloggers. 

After flying out of the office to fight traffic and get to my bartending/serving gig, to only work three hours and make a total of $17, I returned home to check out the Women's Press web site, develop my pitch and send it to the editor.  After punching in the URL to the Women's Press site, I discovered that the "press" updated their site just today with the new week's articles.  I, then, scrolled down to only stumble upon the headline "Blogosphere Sisters."  Ah, fuck!  Cliches suck, but you know the one I am thinking of, right?  My story idea written and posted the week I frickin' think of it.  Figures!!!  So, I am bummed!

What better time to write though, huh?  Seems to just flow.  So, as I sip my pinot grigio, puff away at my evil Camel Lights (I know I should quit considering I just watched the coverage of Peter Jenning's announcment of his lung cancer) and boil water for my oh-so-glamourous butter noodles that I am sportin' to eat, I am starting my new blog. 

My intent with this blog is to showcase my adventure, that will no doubt be rollercoaster-like, to becoming a published (not just self-published on the internet, like anyone can do, but a legitimate and paid, published) writer. 

I intend to use this blog to yes, rant, about my journey, but also to publish/post my "writing practice" work (my weekly writings that I do to practice writing), to post writing resources that I find, for others who are also on a similar journey to utilize, to highlight my work and to hopefully, in the end, land some writing gigs.

So, welcome to my journey.  It is no-doubt going to be a ride.  One that I am unsure of the exact result, but nonetheless, one that I am excited to venture on. 

On my way, I invite you to share with me your thoughts, your advice, your experiences and your encouragement.  If you are to criticize, I invite that too.  Just know that while I read your remarks I will be downing the entire bottle of pinot!!

To end, I will simply leave it to the late Gertrude Stein, as I have named my blog after one of her famous quotes....

You will write
if you will write without thinking of the result
in terms of a result,
but think of the writing in terms of discovery,
which is to say that creation must take place
between the pen and the paper,
not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...

It will come if it is there and if you will let it come.

Cin, Cin to my writing journey!

-Kimberly