Welcome to My New Home
by Lisa A Kramer, in Writing
I have been blogging over at Woman Wielding Words for over three years and thousands of miles. Literally, thousands of miles and millions of words. Since my first blog post there I have moved from Colorado to Iowa (for the summers) to Kansas and then back to my original home state of Massachusetts. I've driven cross-country several times, and flown to conferences in Seattle, WA and Lexington, KY. I've worked with Roma children in Slovakia, presented workshops and readings in New York City, and mourned my father's passing as I visited my in-laws in Hawaii.
I've written about it all.
I've also made incredible friendships with fellow bloggers, meeting a few of them along the way. I've even managed to gather a few followers and respond to thousands of comments.
[caption id="attachment_6410" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Meeting Tori Nelson at Kathy McCullough's home. Image from Kathy's blog.[/caption]
Since then, Tori has eased off of blogging for a bit, although I hope she'll be back as she is an incredibly talented writer over at The Ramblings. She's funny and interesting, and was crazy enough to plan her wedding via the blog, in a Very Bloggy Wedding. Kathy, from Reinventing the Event Horizon has also taken a brief break from blogging, but only because she and her new wife Sara decided to reinvent their lives completely, sell their home and move to Ecuador. I am counting the minutes until Kathy gets back to blogging and writes about her adventures. I intend to add Ecuador to my visits one of these days.
Anyway, back to my blog. I've shared my hopes and confusion as I try to figure out the roller coaster ride that is my life; try to understand where I'm going, what I'm doing, and how to best achieve those goals. I've ranted about society. I've lectured about the value of the arts. I've shared snippets of poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, images and art.
And yet, with all that, I'm moving my blog to this new location . . . this new home.
Why?
It all started when I attended the New England Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrator's (NESCBWI) conference over the past weekend. While I've attended a few smaller writer's conferences put on by the college I worked at, this was my first foray into the real world of writing conferences. This adventure included: a manuscript critique (with good and bad points); well-known authors, editors and agents; an overload of information; and an overwhelming emotional ride that ranged from "what am I doing here, I'll never be able to do this" to "this is what I want to do with the rest of my life."
Along the way, I met some lovely people and made a few new friends.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"]
Reagan Leigh, Laurence King and myself at the conference. Image from Laurence King.[/caption]
Many of the sessions I attended were about how to create your platform, get your work out there, etc. All of them talked about websites. One of them talked about moving from Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org or a self-hosted site. Now, I know I'm still figuring out who I am as a writer/artist/educator person, but I also knew that it was time for me to take the next step and show the world that I can, indeed, make this work. I've decided to keep the old blog up, as an archive and a pointer to this site, as well as a place to pillage for ideas. I want to streamline this page more, so I have now decided not to transfer all of the old blog posts over, except for a few of my favorites.
So here we are. I hope my followers at the original site will make their way over here, but I also look forward to getting to know any new members along the way.
Everybody is welcome!
I think I'd like to borrow a page from another of my favorite bloggers destined to one day become a famous author, Andra Watkins who blogs at The Accidental Cootchie Mama. In a recent post, Andra asked to get to know her readers better. She wrote:
I've written about it all.
I've also made incredible friendships with fellow bloggers, meeting a few of them along the way. I've even managed to gather a few followers and respond to thousands of comments.
[caption id="attachment_6410" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Meeting Tori Nelson at Kathy McCullough's home. Image from Kathy's blog.[/caption]Since then, Tori has eased off of blogging for a bit, although I hope she'll be back as she is an incredibly talented writer over at The Ramblings. She's funny and interesting, and was crazy enough to plan her wedding via the blog, in a Very Bloggy Wedding. Kathy, from Reinventing the Event Horizon has also taken a brief break from blogging, but only because she and her new wife Sara decided to reinvent their lives completely, sell their home and move to Ecuador. I am counting the minutes until Kathy gets back to blogging and writes about her adventures. I intend to add Ecuador to my visits one of these days.
Anyway, back to my blog. I've shared my hopes and confusion as I try to figure out the roller coaster ride that is my life; try to understand where I'm going, what I'm doing, and how to best achieve those goals. I've ranted about society. I've lectured about the value of the arts. I've shared snippets of poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, images and art.
And yet, with all that, I'm moving my blog to this new location . . . this new home.
Why?
It all started when I attended the New England Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrator's (NESCBWI) conference over the past weekend. While I've attended a few smaller writer's conferences put on by the college I worked at, this was my first foray into the real world of writing conferences. This adventure included: a manuscript critique (with good and bad points); well-known authors, editors and agents; an overload of information; and an overwhelming emotional ride that ranged from "what am I doing here, I'll never be able to do this" to "this is what I want to do with the rest of my life."
Along the way, I met some lovely people and made a few new friends.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"]
Reagan Leigh, Laurence King and myself at the conference. Image from Laurence King.[/caption]Many of the sessions I attended were about how to create your platform, get your work out there, etc. All of them talked about websites. One of them talked about moving from Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org or a self-hosted site. Now, I know I'm still figuring out who I am as a writer/artist/educator person, but I also knew that it was time for me to take the next step and show the world that I can, indeed, make this work. I've decided to keep the old blog up, as an archive and a pointer to this site, as well as a place to pillage for ideas. I want to streamline this page more, so I have now decided not to transfer all of the old blog posts over, except for a few of my favorites.
So here we are. I hope my followers at the original site will make their way over here, but I also look forward to getting to know any new members along the way.
Everybody is welcome!
I think I'd like to borrow a page from another of my favorite bloggers destined to one day become a famous author, Andra Watkins who blogs at The Accidental Cootchie Mama. In a recent post, Andra asked to get to know her readers better. She wrote:
In the spirit of fostering camaraderie in this burgeoning community, please take a few lines in a comment today to introduce yourselves – both seasoned readers and new. If you’re a fellow blogger, feel free to include a link to your blog.In the comments below, introduce yourselves, and link us to your blogs. Let's build this community together.
