We have made a deliberate choice to free up our weekend mornings this year. No swimming lessons, no sport. True, some of these have been squeezed into our weeknight schedule, making these a little tighter, but I can’t emphasise just how nice has been to sit around of a Saturday morning, rather like Adam is above, and not have a have a half-heart attack because we’ve suddenly realised we need to be somewhere immediately.
We won’t be able to maintain this indefinitely. Take this morning for example, Keira and I went and helped with a Girl Guides fundraiser. Next Saturday is a fete. And so it goes.
This past week saw this blog feature some externally sponsored/endorsed content and I know that kind of thing gets up some people’s noses. The sort of discussion going around about this, for me, is starting to fall into the ‘you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t’ territory and I honestly don’t find that very interesting. Perhaps that’s because those discussions have been happening for so long now, without a whole lot of new ground being covered, just the old cyclic debates, and I’m starting to switch off.
That said, what has always interested me is how people go about trying to incorporate and fuse their creativity into ways that will match their voice and vision for themselves, both on their blogs and extension(s) of these, as applicable. This is what I’m trying to do with my living list, for example: by putting ‘out there’ – no matter how scary, and believe me, it was – what you want is a possible invitation for ridicule and belittlement.
We also have to remember that a blog for an increasing amount of people is just the start of the portfolio of work for their careers which they are assembling for themselves. This diversification has a manifold of outcomes – and repercussions. Even – dare I say especially – for personal bloggers? Are our blogs the holy chalices they (might) once have been? I don’t believe this makes our stories or our pains/pleasures any less valid or untrustworthy once told, far from it, but nor can we look around at our landscape without taking this new era – and the scowlers, too – into account. And when it comes to sponsored content, they are hard. Goddamn, they are. It’s why I say no to a lot of them.
I was at an event once when I was talking about my blog and I can’t quite recall how we got on the subject, I think it was about the cons of blogging, or our secret fears about it, and I admitted I wondered if it might make me less employable. My own struggles on here are well documented and since writing this post about my farcical life insurance application I’ve become even more aware of it.
Do I regret writing about things in my past? No. Will I keep writing ones similarly tough and personal if I also get commissioned to write other posts? Yes.
But can both be done well? Or are there two metaphoric baskets here that I need to decide where my eggs need placing?
I’m not sure.
I’m trying to figure it out.
Just as all personal/mum/dad/parent bloggers are, I guess.
