 I’ve lived in Louisville all my life. I don’t count the two years I spent in undergraduate school at the University of Kentucky because I came home every weekend. I’ve traveled a bit, but Looavull has always been my base.
When I was a kid, I would often complain about my hometown, whining that there was nothing to do here (and then I went to school in Lexington, oy). Oh, how I could not wait to get the hell out. Sadly, I wasn’t quite ambitious enough to make that happen in my early 20s, and by 22, I was pregnant. There was no question about where I would raise my child — amongst family, friends and familiar surroundings. I was stuck, er, committed to a life here. And thank God. Today, I love this ol’ city, schizophrenic weather and all. There is a small chance, now that my son is grown, I’ll move to Florida or Hawaii someday — I wrote last week about my near-obsessive affection for the beach. The ocean is the only thing Loueyville is missing, in my humble estimation. (Update: flights are booked, and my October trip is officially on!)
3 Comments
 This past weekend, I was honored to be one of the presenters at the Women Who Write conference. My topic was “Blogging … with Purpose.” I don’t know if a single soul got anything useful out of my talk, but no one fell asleep or walked out midway through, so as far as I am concerned, it was a success.
Now, I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert on blogging. I was very up front with the organizers about that little detail, and they still wanted me to impart what I know. This post is intended to be a summary of what I shared. I don’t make a living with this little blog. You may have noticed that I don’t sell any advertising on it. I have no objection to doing that, but I cannot imagine who would want to buy it, and I don’t have the time or inclination to find out. I’ve been blogging once a week for almost two years in this space, as an extension of my professional website. I also ghostblog (lookie there, I just made up a new word!) for several clients. (Side note: my audience this weekend was other writers, most of whom have never blogged, so I focused my presentation on tips that would help them launch their craft in an online forum. Blogging for business is a little bit different animal.)  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the groundwork of starting and building a business. Understandable, since I’m kinda in the middle of the building part right now.
I’m pretty secure about the services I’m selling – the marketable skills of writing, editing and media relations consulting. But when it comes to the back-end of actually running a business that’s financially solvent and in legal compliance with the IRS and other government entities, I’m not quite as confident.  So I’ve got this coffee mug (pictured at left) that has adorned every desk I’ve occupied during my 15 years in the professional world. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time until this past Friday, when I gingerly wrapped it in newspaper and packed it into a box with the rest of the junk from what I hope was my last corporate job.
The mug had become much more of an ornament than a drinking vessel in recent years, so it was gathering dust high on a shelf at my last gig. There was a time in the late 90s, however, when it supplied my daily dose of dirty hot water, er, office-grade java. (So I’m a coffee snob, sue me!)  I’ve truly enjoyed using this space to share essays that detail my personal journey, and I am thrilled that a few people beyond my parents are reading my posts. But truth be told, I’m still trying to figure out what I want this blog to be when it grows up.
In the couple months since I launched my website, I have been satisfied to simply use this space as a public outlet for any old random topic I want to write about. And it turns out my favorite topic is me. (My inner circle of friends and family are collectively rolling their eyes right now.) In another life, I wrote a weekly newspaper column for Business First. It went through a few iterations, but in the end, it was a vehicle for me to relate the random experiences of my life to the business world. It was called “The Hook Up” for about half its life, but after a fun little reader’s contest, it was renamed “I’m Just Saying.” A few years later, in 2007, I left the paper and the column was shelved. I have to confess that I much preferred its retirement over being replaced with a new writer. There was way too much of me in there to just hand it over. That would have been like handing over my son to someone else to raise.
The official tagline for my little column was that it was aimed toward business professionals under age 40 primarily because, at the time, I was one of them. But unofficially, I heard from a lot of 40+ readers over the years who said they read it to keep up with the younger generation of workers. I took that as a huge compliment. I mean, influential people in the Louisville business community actually gave a damn about what I had to say. Little did they know I had no clue what I was talking about! |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
September 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed