My screen floods with text as I finally start filling in the outline for a blog post I’ve wanted to write for months. Other times I tried to write it, my fingernails itched. Something was off. I stepped away over and over, hoping the invisible hurdle would wander off while I wasn’t looking.
But I needed to write. I couldn’t wait for the problem to solve itself.
Thinking a small change of scenery might help, I tried my outline in different places. It’s meant for my business website, but I don’t like the blog interface there. I tried typing it into a Google Doc. Writing it on a notepad. The whiteboard. Strongly considered dictating.
Eventually, I started a new draft here on my writing site. Some things are easier to draft here for some reason. The words just come out without second-guessing if each one sounds like I’m trying. Within an hour, I moved into the editing and revising stage. It was going so well, I couldn’t help wondering what it was about this site that made writing certain things so easy.
The answer hit me as I waited for the preview to load, and my article filled the screen. I couldn’t even read it at first. My brain was trying to figure out whether I should feel proud and excited at the proof that my professional insight was right, or a little embarrassed at the discovery that I was still acting on the same misbelief I had helped a client through some months ago.
That client wanted to redo his website, but wasn’t sure what it needed. He wanted to get hired as a videographer, build his portfolio, and get a better full-time job in his industry, but he also wanted to share the creative film work he’s been doing. He thought he had to choose one identity for people to take him and his work seriously.
With the clarity of an outside perspective, I told him he didn’t need to choose. Both sides of his work could coexist in the same space. A website is flexible. He can emphasize the videography work he wants to do for now while his creative work helps establish his authority and credibility.
And there I sat with my two websites, like I had severed myself into outie Creative Writer Amanda and innie Professional Amanda Who Works With Creatives.
Drafting my business blog post was easier on my writing site because this is where I write like myself. I can write about process, and my manuscript and cabbage leaves in my bra—without worrying whether people take me seriously as a writer. I write and share my writing here. That makes me a serious writer, even if the things I write are whimsical and weird.
But my business site still tries to be taken seriously. It hides the whimsical and weird while vaguely pointing at it to help my prospective clients see that I’m one of them.
And my writing site hides the work I do for my business because some part of me is still uncomfortable with openly admitting I want to be paid for my work, not just appreciated. Still afraid that any mention of my website clarity services will scare off people who want to read my creative nonfiction and fiction.
It’s hard and exhausting and expensive to maintain this separation. Bringing them together—as they should be—is also hard and exhausting and scary.
But when I think about the books I want to publish and the articles I want to pitch, I don’t want to have to decide which of my websites matches the work. I’d rather have one place for people to see all I do all at once.
It’s easier to take small steps through discomfort. I’ve brought the colors and fonts of my business site to my writing site so they look more like parts of the same world. You can find a new Work With Me page that will go through about a thousand revisions over the next few months. I’m practicing writing about my business rather than hiding and compartmentalizing it, blurring the lines before I can erase them.
Leave a Reply