One Year Later, A Little Bit Smarter

Posted on | May 24, 2010 | 2 Comments

Welcome to the new and (hopefully) improved Ordinary Mer. There are still some minor things I want to tweak, but for the most part, this is it.

Almost a month ago, I realized I needed to take a break from writing, not just for work (though that was my primary reason), but also for myself. I needed to take a step back and reevaluate what I wanted to do and why I was writing in the first place. I needed a shake-up.

It makes sense in retrospect, of course. I just passed the one-year mark of writing on OM, so naturally, after a year of doing things one way, I obviously wanted to change things up and find a new approach. The first year was all about the growing pains, trying to find my voice and writing style. Now that I’ve made it this far, it’s time to step up to the next level. The new blog platform and design is part of that, but it also goes much deeper.

When I first started OM, I really had no idea what I was doing. I just thought that I had a lot to say and I wanted a place to say it. A year later, I still have a lot to say, but I find that I need more focus and structure. Writing about whatever I want to write about only works for so long. As it stands right now, OM doesn’t really fit into any categories or labels. I don’t know if that’s going to change moving forward, but I’m certainly going to try to be more deliberate with my chosen topics.

One of my biggest fears, both as a writer and as a person living life, is becoming complacent. Before my self-imposed break, writing and OM were starting to feel like a chore, an obligation that I couldn’t bring myself to give up. Of course, now I’m glad I didn’t give up, because I feel like I have a renewed and reinvented sense of who I am as a writer and what OM is as a blog.

The first year in the life of this blog was all about growth and change. My hope for the second year is the discovery of an identity and the move from a writer who doesn’t know what she’s doing to one who’s confident in her ability to say what she wants to say.

So, thanks to my few and faithful readers for sticking around. I hope you plan on being around for the next year as well.

(P.S. If you normally read this blog in a reader, you should probably update your RSS subscription and/or re-subscribe. There’s a pretty good chance I screwed up my RSS settings when I migrated. And by “pretty good chance,” I mean “definite chance.”)

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