Taking The Leap

Well, I've done it.

I wrote recently that I wanted to move away from commercial writing and focus on opinion pieces.  Talk about the things that I wanted to again, instead of using the blog as a part time job with the occasional thought piece thrown in.

I have said similar things before and my intentions have been pure, but somehow I have always found myself lured back in.  A quick guest post or two, a link, then just another couple of sponsored posts.  Not this time.  No more.  I am done.

The real catalyst for all of this I think comes from my Twitter account.  I have always said what I thought on Twitter in the most part, but over recent months I have become more vocal and have become tired of hiding some parts of my thoughts in order to maintain my blog.

I got an email reply from a PR this week, stating that although she loved my blog (do they ever actually mean that? I doubt it), my Twitter account was not something that their client would want to be associated with.

So that, right there was the moment.  Do I reel back what I think and become once again a pen for profit, or do I do what I set out to do?

I decided it was time to be true to myself again.  I started by thanking the said PR for her comments.  Then I unsubscribed to all blogging emails, removed myself from paid blogging groups on Facebook, unfollowed all PR companies on Twitter and started to move away from all the people I had followed purely for numbers rather than actual interest in their content.

I began to get excited about writing again.  Ideas tumbled into my head about what I wanted to write and I finally finished the interview post that I have been preparing over the past few weeks (upcoming in the next week).

Right now, I have five different posts in draft, all different subjects, all partly written when I have come up with an idea and just had to get the bones of it written down. 

My thoughts, feelings and opinions are flowly straight through my fingers again and it feels wonderful.  I don't care about profit, numbers or even whether anyone reads my musings from now on, or not.

But I am back to being totally myself, warts and all. 

Turns out that turning 40 is a little like having a revolution in your head.  I like it.