This Is Not A Mummy Blog

While the little one sleeps, I'm stealing a moment to update my very loved and completely neglected blog. But if I loved it so, would I neglect it in this fashion? Sure. I think of it like long lost friends - the ones who, no matter how long you are apart, act the same when they see you again. Some bonds you simply cannot break. This blog is one of those bonds. For crying out loud, I've had this damn thing since 2006. That's ten years!

Ten years of blogging. Someone get me a medal. No seriously. Do you know how many people start blogs and abandon them without care or concern? Thousands. There are literally thousands of lost blogs floating around the interweb with one or two posts and then - nothing. How tragic. And yet, here I am. Still plugging away on what use to be That Girl Tyson. Sure, I only posted a handful of times last year, but I posted 339 times in 2014. That's almost a blog a day, which is actually what I was going for.

Trust me when I say there is a lot of hidden content on here. After ten years, there are probably close to a hundred posts I've turned to drafts again in hopes of them being forever forgotten. Not simply because there were riddled with poor grammar, which they were, but because they are too private or silly. Either or. The others I've gone back and re-edited, hoping to clear away the errors.

In fact, I just edited my last post and found four errors. Unacceptable. I can't believe I hit publish without correcting 'excitement' and 'friendships'. I even misspelled 'will'. It's a four letter word, how the hell did I misspell it? Probably something to do with sleep deprivation and carb-overdosing. Yes, I don't sleep enough and I am eating too much food. Some will say I need the food to create the milk to feed the babe, but the truth is my breasts are a big dodgy and have issues sustaining life. Long story short, this isn't a mummy blog. So we will end that right here. 

The point of this post is to tell you this isn't going to be all about my wee infant. I am not going to post photos and updates, and talk about the pros and cons of motherhood. There will be no tricks to putting a babe to sleep or ways to make the bitty one stop bawling, I don't know those types of things anyway. Isn't the best approach to simply repeat "please stop crying" and "please go to sleep" over and over? Or am I doing this wrong. 

So, this ins't a mummy blog, as the title states. Except, the problem is, he's currently my entire existence. Whenever I get to thinking about writing a little blip here, it's always about him. I have five drafts I simply didn't share with you because it's all about him and his perfect mouth and hands and bum and eyes. And then there are those times I want to write about the birth. Mostly, I think, because I still have PTSD from his entrance into the world and, well, I want to talk about all the gory details. Just to put them down somewhere. Because people always say you forget the details of the birth and, quite frankly, I don't want to. I want to remember everything, from the sound my waters made when they broke them to the poop I left behind on the floor. Too much information? Sorry not sorry. Birthing is beautiful. It's disgustingly beautiful. Horrifically beautiful. Batshit beautiful. 

Batshit beautiful. Now, that's a saying I can see catching on. I'm trademarking it. 

To clear things up, I don't have anything against mummy blogs, except for the fact that I don't think people really want to read them. I mean, I've read my fair share as I try to stumble through being a mom, but everything has already been said about parenting. I certainly don't have anything worthy to add. So, I promise I won't write about the Timbit all the time - but sometimes, yes, because I can't help myself! The thing is, just because he consumes my life right now doesn't mean I won't have other thoughts later. I suppose I am making a promise. Not just to you, but to myself as well. I promise to write again. Not only blogs but novels and stories too. I am determined to be creative. Maybe not right now, but it's coming. Big things are coming. I can feel it in my bones. And on that day, watch out.

Ten years and I am still toiling away. Labour of love, indeed. Actually, October is my true ten year anniversary here, according to my first posted blog. So, I suppose I'll throw a party then and someone will get me a tin gift. It's tin for ten years right? 

I'm sure I will have become a big, successful, household named author by then. Go ahead, laugh with me. 

Quitting Is For Quitters

On a whim, I decided to go through all the blogs I follow. As it turns out, everyone and their mother has a blog and apparently I was diligently following them. The list mostly consisted of other wannabe-authors like me. Men and women toiling away, churning out blogs about their journeys, posting articles about writing and editing and just awesome life events and crap that is important to them.

Oh, wait, hold on.

While the blogs I followed were mostly other writers, they certainly weren't posting anything. This blew my mind. Not literally, just figuratively. Out of the 127 witty blogs with wonderful play-on-word titles, only thirty of them were still active. Most of them hadn't had posts in months and a lot years!

Now, I know how this works. Some of these blogs had been abandoned for new blogs, and I simply wasn't given the memo, but most of them were left out in the rain, much like that cake in that song. But, but, but, the abandoned blog owners will say. Everyone has reasons, right? Reason why they didn't write. Reasons why they didn't respond. Reasons, reasons, reasons. We are full of them.

Alright, I can sympathize. There are dry spells. When you're moving or birthing a child into this world, you can go months without posting but still have the intention of returning to your virtual stomping ground to deliver amazing content to the boys and girls following your blogs. You might be sitting there, baby on teat, thinking about all the things you want to say.

But those people are the exception, not the rule.

As I axed the inactive blogs out of my list of worthy reads, I picked out over seventy people who hadn't moved, gotten married, or pushed a child into this world. What is their excuse?

They are quitters.

Plain and simple.

Surely that's going to ruffle a few feathers. As it should. No one wants to be considered a quitter. But it doesn't matter how you cut it. Quitting is for quitters. And if you have a blog you haven't posted on since last fall. You're a quitter. I don't care how good your intentions are. That baby is out there floating in the blog abyss, cold, hungry and wondering what it did to drive you away.

Don't you love it when I personify a blog? I do.

Some of these crappy blog owners might say they ran out of things to write about. I've heard it before. No really. I have.

If that's the case, perhaps the whole writing thing isn't for you. Because, let me tell you, even when my wells run a bit dry, there's still water seeping in through the cracks in the foundation. The soil is always moist, if you know what I mean. Granted, I completely understand if you don't. It was a weird analogy. I think the point is - you should always have something to say.

Simply put, people give up. Sure, I am only talking about blogs here, and maybe they don't seem important to you, but if you can't muster enough creativity or energy to post a blog once a week then how the heck are you going to stay on top of marketing your book or responding to your readers.

Think about it this way. All these people out there who start a blog, write a book, self publish, sell ten copies, don't achieve the staggering famedom they were anticipating and just throw the towel in. It kind of terrifies me to think of how saturated Amazon is with these types of cases.

But people don't read my blog, the quitters moan.

Boo-hoo!

Perhaps you're putting boring as dirt posts out into the world. Or maybe you aren't utilizing tags. There might even be a chance your really crappy at networking. Comments and views and reads ebb and flow depending on the time of day you post to what it is you're writing about. Word on the street is that twenty thousand people start a blog each day. (Those numbers seem a bit high these days, but as we know humans are extremely opinionated) With those numbers, it's hard to fathom making a splash in that sort of a pool, right? I get it. I understand.

But here is how I think about this whole writing into the blog abyss. It's practice.

Practice for when my seven figure deal comes rolling in. All I am doing is showing the world I have drive and tenacity. That I am not going anywhere. No matter how few of views on my vlog, reads on my blog, or likes I get on my sardonic but ingenious Facebook updates, I am sticking around. Because this is what I want to do. This is my passion.

I ain't no quitter.

That said, I cannot guarantee the content posted here will always blow your socks off. But it will most of the time. Blogging is work. Whoever told you otherwise was lying.

Oh, yeah, I've decided to delete blogs off my reading list if they go a month or longer without posting. It's a harsh rule, I know, but maybe this will motivate some people to actually start taking this social media, blogging, virtual crap seriously.