As if it were yesterday, I remember launching my first website. It went “live” and then everything that was wrong with the copy became obvious. Glaring typos. Run-on sentences. Tense errors. Oh my.
My brother John was visiting.
We sat side by side in front of my computer and smoothed out all of the grammatical errors, or he did. For the record, I am an editors nightmare–or dream–depending upon which lens you choose to look through. Nightmare from the standpoint that I make up the rules as I go. And a dream because I am living proof that their services will always be required.
So there we were, knee to knee. Each machinating over every last comma and word.
And I panicked…someone could be reading the very page we were updating. I imagined countless readers tabbing through the pages, tsk, tsking over every error. In my mind it was as if toggling my site to go live had sent a signal to everyone with an Internet connection.
Oh if it had only been so!
My foray into Google Analytics was not even a twinkle in my eye then. Really? Thank goodness. My utter ignorance no doubt served me, had I known how difficult it would be to connect with readers, it may have prevented that blissful, albeit naive, first step.
Back then my goals were specific to my book and speaking engagements.
Blog? Oh maybe here and there. I was told I had to blog…but I really didn’t know what on earth that really entailed. Because my book is about healing from abuse, I felt that I somehow was limited to writing about exactly and only that. And it worked for a while. Sort of.
The closer I got to my 50th birthday the more I realized that I needed to break out from underneath the platform I had created–that of a domestic violence expert. The word “expert” has never sat well with me. Am I versed in DV? Yes. Have I researched the subject extensively? Yes. Did I experience verbal, sexual and physical violence? Yes. Have I moved well beyond victim hood and survival? Yes. Am I called upon to deliver inspirational speeches, keynote presentations and workshops? Yes. But I craved more.
I needed a place to simply share the all of it. My life story is not limited to one experience–far from it. And that was the genesis for launching Beyond the Backyard Blues.
If you are new here, welcome, so am I.
BTBYB launched last April, weeks after, my mother died. And months would pass before I poked my head back into the dashboard of this website. Even now it’s still slow going. Yet along the way I have met some of the most wonderful people, mostly women, some writers, others not.
What I have found is we all share in common this universal desire to connect. To share our stories. To cry. To laugh. To simply peel back the layers of the incredible gifts found in living and then give slices of it away–that for me–is where the magic is.
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