Tell the tale – part 1: What’s the point?

 

What’s it all about? Why am I doing this? What is the end goal? Is there an end?

I’m not questioning my existence. My existence is firmly established. I’m old enough to have gone past the questions of youth that prompt starry eyed angst.

 

What I’m questioning is the existence of this blog. Clearly I haven’t been giving it the attention it needs. Given the last post having been written in June, it’s not getting the love it deserves. I know I have some useful information here. I can see that people DO read it.

To find these answers, I’ve had to go back to why I started it in the first place. It was back in 2010. I had a gallery site for my photography but no blogs. I had just returned from a vacation and was sitting at my desk at my office job thinking about how I’d like to travel more. But how?

• What can I do to earn more money so that we could experience more of the world?
• What are the skills I have that could contribute to this?
• Photography
• Writing
• Creative design
• Marketing
• Small business management
• Bookkeeping experience
• Desire to travel
• What do I WANT to do? What gets me fired up? What do I have enough passion about that I’d be willing to give up some of my spare time to get it going?
• Photography
• Writing
• How could each of those talents translate to the end goal of more travel?
• Travel photography
• Travel writing
• How do you get started?
• DO IT

I researched and found that one of the best ways to get started in either travel photography or travel writing, or both, was to start in your own backyard. I live in Maine. I’ve got a backyard that’s desirable to a lot of people. Maine has a thriving tourism industry, an industry that would support the need for Maine travel writing and photography.

 

All of that is great as far as determining something I could work towards. But, what does that mean on a day to day basis? At that point, it meant:

• Building a portfolio of work that was marketable – How?
• see what’s already out there that’s being created for this
• take more travel related photos – find a way to showcase them
• write more about travel – develop a voice – develop a following –
• DO IT

In the coming weeks, I will further explore these concepts and plot a course for success.

I'd love to hear your advice as you've managed the evolution of your blogs.

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