Your Life Changes, Does Your Blog Need To?
At BlogHer this year, I sat on a panel with three other phenomenal bloggers/writers and talked about writing outside your comfort zone. More specifically, we talked about how a blogger goes about continuing to write after their life changes the reasons for their blog.
When I began blogging in 2005, I had an audience in mind. I was not a “Writer” and I was not spinning tales, sharing my prose or even reviewing books I loved. Instead I was in the second year of my struggle with infertility and I was looking for a community that was going through what I was.
Needless to say, as 1 out of every 8 couples is diagnosed with infertility, I found a vibrant and vocal village of women that became my advisers, my “sisters” and the glue that held me together on very bad days.
Then, in the summer of 2007, my life changed. I did an In-vitro fertilization and I got pregnant. With Twins. Thus, my blog needed to change. But instead of scrapping it and starting over; I decided to just keep writing. I didn’t change my tagline or even the name of my space; I simply made room for the way my circumstances had shaped my life.
Full disclosure, I lost some followers.
Many infertile women have a hard time visiting a space where someone is pregnant, so where I gained some new visitors, I also lost some others. I would learn in the eight years since I began writing THE KIR CORNER, that this was expected. As each chapter of my life unfolded (becoming a (working) mom (to twins), being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, joining the writing communities I love so much), I was also adding new ones to the blog that was becoming more than just a diary of my infertile life.
I might have started as an infertility blogger, but by 2010, I was so much more than that. So I used to my blog to talk about all of it. Neatly fitting all the aspects of my life on the page and inviting people from every corner of the internet to read, share and visit my CORNER.
One thing that is very important to keep in mind is that whenever you start a journey you never really know your destination. You may have one tapping at your subconscious but the truth is that you never know where your life is going to take you. I never knew if or how I would eventually become a mother. I was as much a part of that journey to my family as anyone reading me.
Take for example the woman who starts a blog to discuss her upcoming wedding. You (and she) would like to think that she will indeed MARRY, so while you are reading her posts about etiquette, future mother in laws and place settings, you have to be prepared for the day when she shares her wedding pictures with you and begins her posts about heating leftovers, sex that first year and how marriage has changed her and her newly minted husband. That blogger needs to decide if her WEDDING BLOG has now become a MARRIAGE BLOG.
She needs to be ready to lose the readers that aren’t interested in her marriage and she also needs to be ready to welcome in the readers who find her much more interesting now that she is a wife.
I could give you a plethora of examples, that cancer patient who survives the writer who gets published, the happily married that gets divorced, the divorced that finds their soul mate. Everyone has a story and a purpose for wanting to share their words, but the thing is that in “picking up the pen” per se, we are all hoping to find our way to the next phase of our lives.
It’s simply the push and pull that make up who we are as human beings. What I’ve learned is that instead of starting over every time something affected the center of mine, I just increased my space and focus. I prepared myself for the rise and ebbs of people willing to read and I became very comfortable calling myself by many different names.
Infertility blogger, Mommy (of twins) Blogger, Amateur Writer; these are the hats that I’ve worn over the years with pride. Each one of them giving me the opportunity to share parts of myself with my various communities and I never needed to retire my blog in order to do it.
How about you, how do you feel about your own blog and its ability to withstand major life changes? Would you retire your blog if your life changed beyond the scope of it? Have you ever done this?
Tell me in the comments.
Outside of a move to WORDPRESS from Blogger and a header change in 2010, I have never changed the name, URL or tagline of my blog. That is actually going to change this week. I will be changing the tagline for the first time in eight years. I am excited and a little nostalgic, but I know that the new words I have chosen will encompass my journey thus far and take me into the future of my writing.
Comment
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Comment by Kimberly Rues on January 21, 2013 at 1:28pm -
I'm already seeing how my blog is changing as the boys get older. I write less and less about them and their antics and more and more about becoming myself. Glad to know I don't have to change the name of my blog...but I may need to change the tagline at some point too. Love this perspective. Thanks for sharing :)
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Comment by Kirsten Piccini on January 15, 2013 at 12:49pm -
hi Alexa,
first, I am so sorry about your loss. Of course you are going to write about TTTS and your lost baby for as long as you have words. I think that is the point, that once you go through something, unless you are against writing about it (ever), it is always going to find its way into your pieces.
I am always going to "feel infertile", even as people look at the boys my body made. For me it's not enough that I got pregnant..my body and my spirit were broken and I find that I hear those words in my head..and always will.
what I think IS important is that if you feel like you can share it in one place, or if you need a seperate place to do it , it all comes down to what your heart is telling you.
for me, the infertility, the marriage, the twins, the steamy love scenes of my fiction and the swearing are all part of what make me..ME. I choose to share them all in one space, but I know that not everyone does. This conversation is a fascinating one, much as the panel was in August at BlogHer.
thank you for coming over and commenting. It means a lot to me.
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Comment by Alexa B on January 15, 2013 at 12:36pm -
Kirsten this is a great post! I am in a similar situation - my blog began as an outlet for my grief over losing one of my twins. Now it has evolved into a general parenting/writer blog, although it is still sprinkled heavily with grief posts and I'll never stop trying to raise awareness for TTTS. I am hoping that I will stick with this blog and URL for now, although with some of the things I hope to do in my future, I may have to set up a second blog! Thanks for the great advice!!
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Comment by Kirsten Piccini on January 15, 2013 at 11:34am
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HI Heather,
thank you for coming over to read this and for leaving such a great comment. You and I seem to come from the "same school" of this. That the space per se didn't change, but the content did.
I like how you described it and how it matters more about the PERSON writing it sometimes.
Great response. Thank you for that. :)
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Comment by Heather O'Brien Webb on January 15, 2013 at 11:12am -
Great post! My blog has evolved with me through my first and second pregnancy/child, running a home business, divorcing, a mental breakdown post-divorce and climbing back up from that pit to put my life back together, moving in/marrying my current husband, my third pregnancy/child and the subsequent grief and loss of a stillbirth. It will continue to evolve as I do, because it is my space, and I can't imagine starting a new blog after a dozen years. My followers come/go, sometimes the numbers are higher and sometimes lower, but I am who I am, and I have to hope that who I am continues to be interesting enough to others that somebody will always read. :)
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Comment by Kirsten Piccini on January 15, 2013 at 11:07am
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thank you Tar,
not only for explaining it, but for taking the time to write it out for me. I think that our next CHAT on Studio 30+ may very well be this topic, and I'd love it of you'd be part of the discussion.
I'm also glad your son is doing much better and that the words you share with us are such beautiful ones. Your blog is one of my favorites.
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Comment by Tara Roberts on January 15, 2013 at 10:56am -
Kir,
I really felt that I needed to change. It was literally painful to open that space and try to write something 'happy' or different. There were a lot of bad memories and 'ghosts' too. While my son's underlying diagnosis hasn't changed, and will always have to deal with a myriad of mental health issues, he is in such a better place now. I wanted to leave that initial adjustment phase behind as much as anything.
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Comment by Kirsten Piccini on January 15, 2013 at 10:47am
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Tara
first, thank you for coming over to read. I appreciate that very much.I understand that on some levels, the need to start fresh. I guess if I just had the boys but the infertility just followed me and it was a central part to what I wrote every time , I would feel that need to. For me, the name THE KIR CORNER, was chosen because it didn't have anything to do with infertility, marriage, writing, or anything else that was going on in my life. I just wanted it to be a comfortable space (like your blog is now) for me and anyone else visiting. I'm not angsty by nature, not even in the middle of my infertility, so as my life changed, my blog name and the purpose of my writing didn't need to either.
but yes, that perspective, of wanting to shut the dark door and open a lighter one, to write from that clearer space is understandable.
tell me, do you think you could have kept the old blog and just changed focus, content? Or did you feel like you needed to Start fresh? I'm interested in knowing that. :)
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Comment by Kirsten Piccini on January 15, 2013 at 10:42am
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Alison,
yes that is the beauty of writing for me. The changes I've been through the past few years have only enhanced my journey from infertile to writing mom. :)thanks for coming over to read this. Love you.
(and I hope you like the tagline too, I think you've "heard" it already (wink)
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Comment by Tara Roberts on January 15, 2013 at 10:39am
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When I decided to change the focus of my blog, I did completely change. I closed my first site, and opened the one I have now. The first one chronicled a lot of the angst I was experiencing with the diagnosis of my son with OCD, severe panic/anxiety disorder, and other mental health issues. It became dark and painful. I began hating to write and post. I had to make a clean break. The site I have now, I love. It's a happy, comfortable place for me. I lost a lot of followers too, people I never expected, but I've found so many more who share my love of writing. It all sort of evened out.
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