Since moving my blog to WordPress in August 2007, I have had no regrets. Okay, that’s not entirely true; I have had almost no regrets. For those who aren’t aware, I used to write at a Blogspot blog called Little Woolgatherings. In case you were wondering what a woolgathering is, it’s nothing more than a daydream, an idle fancy. I have many daydreams, many woolgatherings that essentially get me through each day. Whether I am fantasizing about a clean house or children who behave, always eat their vegetables, and never fight, it’s a little slice of hope on which to hang.

Little Woolgatherings was a full-fledged “mommy blog,” although you wouldn’t know it by looking at it now. The site is abandoned, simply a skeleton of what it used to be. Most posts have been imbedded in the privacy of my own memory and deleted from public scrutiny while others have been transferred over to this site. Others hang in limbo, awaiting their fate. One of these days, Little Woolgatherings will be nothing more than a one-post site directing readers here.

Little Woolgatherings gained in popularity and, unbelievably, earned a triple-digit authority on Technocrati and a ranking of just under 33K - not too bad for a site less than six months old. Then something started to happen which caught me off guard completely; I began to receive solicitations in my inbox to write product reviews. How fun, I thought. Why not? The requests came faster than I could handle, and I turned down quite a few because they weren’t quite right with my blog or audience.

I then had this crazy idea I would charge a small fee to review sites and products. Believe me, it wasn’t as easy decision. Who am I, I wondered, to ask for monetary compensation? I justified it with the thinking that they were the ones soliciting me. They were the ones requesting a service outside of my normal day’s work. I had always wanted to write, always, even as a little girl, so I took it as a sign that I needed to begin anew with a fresh idea.

That’s how this site was born, out of a need to branch out into the professional world while retaining some of the personal details that make a blog so much fun to read. However, I paid a price.

I lost my Technorati authority.
I lost my Technorati rank.
I lost my status on Google.
I had to start from scratch.

In addition, while most of you made the transition with me, I lost the support of some. I often hear, I miss all the pictures or I miss the stories about your kids. Friends, there is a reason I no longer include many photographs or detailed stories about my family. I live in a small town and my husband works for a major university. I need to feel secure that what I write will in no way reflect poorly upon my husband, my kids, or myself. I hope to one day establish myself as a respectable freelance writer, and I can’t do that (in my opinion) if I am writing about (insert specific incidents that might embarrass certain members of this family). I would love to be one of those bold woman-writers whose uncensored defamatory stories of her in-laws or intimate details of her sex life earns her thousands of hits each day, but that’s just not me. For one, I consider my in-laws near perfection. Additionally, my sex life can hardly be called a sex life. It’s more like, let me pencil you in on the calendar.

I am modest, if not a bit repressed.

Recently, a real-life friend said to me that she no longer reads my blog. She reads this one on a daily basis, thanks to my recommendation, but she no longer reads mine. Her words stung, to say the least, and I have been dwelling on them ever since. Am I really that boring? Is a “mommy blog” only exciting if the writer talks about her husband’s vasectomy or her children puking in the middle of the night? Do you really want to hear me whine about how tired/broke/out of shape I am? Do I have to divulge every detail of our struggles as parents to a high-maintenance child, how I screamed at my husband for the first time in almost nine years because he pissed me off in a most brutal way? I don’t want this site to be remembered for the insipid events of my daily life. I get up and make coffee and shower, in that order. I get my kids ready for school and put them on the school bus. I clean, write articles, play with my toddler, clean, write articles, play with my toddler, clean, write articles, play with my toddler. I help with homework and wipe the tears of a third-grader who thinks she is stupid for needing a math tutor. I change poop-filled diapers. I quiet a kid who thinks that every injustice in the world is directed at him.

My life is hardly unique.

I want this site to relate useful information, not just amusing anecdotes. I want this site to serve as a public forum in which I am held accountable for my actions. I want this site to be the basis of a writing career that I hope will be long and prosperous.

There is one more thing worth mentioning. I once considered myself lucky to be wooed by companies eager for me to review their sites and products. We came across Little Woolgatherings, they would say, and we love your writing style! Please review this for us! Happily, I believed them. However, when I started to receive the same emails regarding Little Woolgatherings even though it’s been ages since I’ve written there and the site is in disarray, I knew something was up. I would send a polite response, directing them to the page outlining my terms of service. Oh, they would say. Oh, is all they ever say, as the shock of a blogger asking to be compensated leaves them floundering for words.

What’s even more upsetting is what happens when those for whom I have already written free reviews and promotions request my services again. I send out my obligatory polite response directing them to my terms, explaining that I now charge a nominal fee for my time and effort. And then . . . quiet. No response.

A company so eager to work with me again no longer has the time for a writer who (gasp!) actually charges. Free products are fine, yes. However, I also have a real job in addition to my responsibilities as a mother. My time is valuable. Without it, I cannot do my paid writing.

A writer who cannot work is a writer who cannot be paid.

And a writer who cannot be paid is a writer who cannot afford a winter coat for her toddler when it’s 27 degrees outside.

(don’t worry ~ Bridget is now the proud owner of one very hot pink coat)

(thanks to those who pay me to write)

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