Last updated on March 30th, 2021 at 02:29 am
Right.
It’s been a little while since I’ve sat down by the notepad and laid my soul bare for the blog. I’ve hustled immensely through the summer, but now that we’re closing 2014 out with The Months of Ber, I’m finally able to see the forest from the trees and take stock of my life.
Blogging’s fallen from grace as my preferred activity du jour—I’ve been rediscovering my long-abandoned artistic side and trying to take the mélange of my life and build it into something amazing. I’ve seen so many of my fellow bloggers fade into obscurity as other priorities wrest control—some would argue it’s all part of growing up; you either transform blogging from a hobby to a job, or you eventually just… quit.
I mean, what blogger simply writes words on a screen and calls it a day in 2014? Blogging today involves photography, slaving over edits in post-production to get the look, add the watermarks, tag all the metadata possible. It involves social media strategy, recognizing that no two platforms are alike, so you craft different messages for each of your audiences, all the while looking for opportunities to grow where countless others are trying to do the very same thing. It involves branding and advertising, packaging everything you stand for into something digestible so people get you when they come across your site, and not write you off as just someone who gets free stuff to write.
But a year of fatherhood changed my perspective, my goals and my priorities—where once I strove to take the crown as the best blogger in Toronto, clearly crushing the craft with every piece of content I put out, for me, the free swag and luxury trips don’t gleam the way they used to. You can’t come home roaring drunk from brand-sponsored parties when you have to wake up and take care of your kid the next morning. You can’t run from place to place on a media trip and uproot your child’s routine and expect them to be okay. With major life changes, you adjust to the new challenges. You figure out what makes you tick.
You discover what’s actually important to you.
And at this stage in the game, where time is a luxury and I want to get the biggest bang for everything I invest in this digital adventure, there’s only one thing I want to do—create content that’ll change the world.
A World Beyond Words
Feel free to blame the work ethic of a workaholic family, but there’s no end to what I’m up to as a content creator. When I’m not chipping away at countless posts waiting to see daylight, I’m working on a site expansion and blog redesign. I’m working on tools that’ll better analyze custom lists of websites to give bloggers a better idea of how they fare against their peers. I’m working on webcomics, ebooks and infographics, trying to build everything I can with what building blocks I have so far.
I’m crafting my passport for the world beyond the blog.
I don’t see this as giving up—there’s still a place for blogging; it’s something we’re familiar with and something we understand, but it’s not the answer to everything. I’ve put my blood, sweat and tears into blog posts and got great responses, but I know I could connect to the world so much more through other media.
The blog is the foundation—not the finished product.
So now you know. Now you know that while I’ve still got a ridiculous number of stories to tell before I’d ever abandon the written word, I’m looking to give more to the world than my thoughts a paragraph at a time. Because I spend so much time shooting photos and writing blogs, you rarely see the face or hear the voice behind it all, and I know that’s got to change!
You’ve heard it all before—I’m not just a blogger; it’s the start of a long journey ahead; blogging is dead… it’s all true, but hearing it isn’t enough. I like to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, and I long for the day we can look back at these words, confident I achieved everything I’d always set out to do.
Thanks for reading, as always, I hope you come back for more, and until then… I’ll see you at the other end of the tunnel!
Live your life and live it well,
