For years I steadfastly avoided personal topics, stories about me, on this blog. I felt those were among the least interesting things I had to say, with an appeal to almost no one. Maybe that was right, maybe that was wrong, maybe it was just the result of a load of self-doubt that told me my story wasn’t any more interesting or important than anyone else’s so what was the point and you’re just going to feel rejected. Maybe it was just out of a desire to keep my private life private. There wasn’t one reason, to be honest, but it all added up to my keeping it rather professional here for much of the time I’ve been running this (and other) sites and not moving into more first-person stories.

The reality is that the decision to open up and bare the journey I’m going on right now a bit more fully was the result of a conversation with my family about how I was dealing with the current situation I find myself in. We all decided that yeah, this was cool to dive a little deeper in a public sense. Maybe it would expose part of me that was a little more unique, maybe it was something that others would find value in.

Mostly it was about just finding a way to express myself in new and different ways. Whenever we would talk about what I really wanted to do the answer usually came down to “write more.” I’d been keeping both a handwritten journal and occasionally writing in Evernote about more personal topics, but those were staying behind the scenes. But as we talked about it, I realized there’s value to putting this out there.

Ultimately the goal here is to put more of my writing out there and keep this blog as active as I can. If I’m looking for more work as a writer (which I am) then I should showcase that writing as much as possible, right? Not only that, but as I continue to look for more work (which I am) it felt increasingly relevant to just track what all was going on with that search and talk about the journey, challenges and opportunities that were presenting themselves. At least this way, we figured, that part of my resume that shows “Freelance” since June 2016 will have more of a record that can be pointed to of what I was doing in that period. This, to be frank, is that.

As I was considering additional things to write about I mulled and pondered a few other bits of additional material and ultimately rejected them all. More coverage of breaking movie marketing news? Nah, I still don’t have that kind of time. Should I go for cheap traffic by posting “Seven Tips for Content Marketing Success?” Nah, those are almost uniformly useless and don’t fit my style at all. Plus, as Jeremy Pepper points out, they’re basically the same posts people were writing in 2004/5 when a bunch of us were figuring out the best practices for this emerging industry.

So if you’ve been wondering why things have taken a turn from the usual mix of movie marketing campaign analysis, content marketing news or random bits about movies, the Cubs and other topics, that’s the reason. I’m doing all this knowing it makes for a somewhat messy blog, but I’m taking the perspective that what it presents is a more well-rounded portrait of me. That may be a bit scattershot at times, but that’s who I am. I may start publishing some of those truly personal stories I’ve been writing offline recently, but that remains to be seen. For the time being, my hope is that you find some value from me moving into new and more uncomfortable (at least for me) territory.