I used to struggle with having a “point” for my blog. Okay, so I didn’t struggle with that when I was on LiveJournal or when I moved to my first domain (perpetualsmile.net), but as I started to mature as a person and as a writer, I began to wonder: Should I blog about my life? Should I just stick to the “professional” stuff? And then, a couple of weeks ago, De said to me:

I don’t advise separating your life from your writing. Aches and pains aren’t thrilling, but they are human, and humanity in a writer is never a bad thing.

It changed how I looked at my little corner of the web, and also how I looked at myself, my life, and my writing. I’ve been on this quite extraordinary journey throughout the last six months or maybe even year, and I have this awareness of myself that I’ve never had before now. It’s freeing and empowering. It’s also, however, changed this blog (among other things in my life, but that’s another post for another day).

At first, the change in this blog scared me. I wondered if any of the people I’d met through blogging would continue to read it. It terrified me that maybe they wouldn’t like the new stories I wanted to tell. I decided I want to help other creatives — writers, artists, musicians, etc — market themselves, as well as continue to tell my own stories about my life. I worried about how the two would blend… and then I started thinking about De’s words. “Aches and pains [...] are human.” That’s what really stuck with me. Aches and pains are what get us from Point A to Point B in our own personal journeys through life. We might not see it at the time, but when we look back, it’s amazing. Or at least, it is for me.

I want to share my aches and pains with you, in the hopes that my experiences will help you get through your own aches and pains. This includes my chronic illness, my depression, trial and error with digital marketing, and everything related to writing. See, these things are all a huge part of me, and I have learned that I can’t hide the ugly if I want to show the beauty.

At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made. So, you can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.

–Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

My best friend has this tattooed on her back, and what I love about it most is that it can be interpreted in so many ways, and the more I grow, the more interpretations I see. This is an important lesson in writing, too; Robert Kirkman frequently tells impatient readers of The Walking Dead that the highs wouldn’t seem so high if there weren’t any lows in the story.

What This Blog Is

• A chronicle of my journey from writer to author
• A chronicle of my life with chronic illness
• A chronicle of my struggle with depression
• A chronicle of my marketing lessons learned

What This Blog Isn’t

• A dumping ground for negativity; there is always negativity, but I will not share it just for the sake of being negative, no matter how tempting it may seem.

I share other things here, too, like book reviews and music I’m currently digging. (Speaking of, you should check out Washington. She’s a solo act from Australia, and I’m a little in love. She’s a little jazzy, a little ska, a little alternative, and her song “Holy Moses” hooked me from the first time I heard it.) My main goal here, however, is to chronicle my journey from writer to author, and to help other creatives market themselves online.

What’s the “point” of your blog? Is it just for fun? Is it for business? Is it a chronicle of something? Is it a mix?