hollywood housewife

blogging is my favorite: blogging boundaries

This week I'm giving a behind-the-scenes of the blog world. Because Blogging Is My Favorite.

When you first get started blogging, whether it’s just to share with family or if you plan to be more serious about it, set yourself from boundaries.

The first thing you should address should be your privacy level. What are you comfortable sharing and what is off-limits? Ask yourself and ask your spouse. Don’t take on anyone else’s privacy philosophy. Everyone feels differently about this topic. Some say Big Brother is watching our every move anyway, so who cares. Some think predators are crouched on their doorstep just waiting for an internet misstep.

There’s a tiny bit of validity in both those things, but like most people I fall in the middle. I am very aware of what I put online, but I don’t go overboard with worry about it. I post pictures of my children. But I don’t use their real names. I write about hard things, but I omit personal family details.

Because The Gorilla has a large fan base, my decisions on the privacy front are important. But yours are, too. I choose not to use his name because of the search engines. I choose not to use my kids names because as they get older I don’t want their names so closely tied to these stories on the internet, and also because I don’t want strangers calling them by name in person. I think that’s confusing and possibly dangerous for them. (One note about that: one of my very few blog regrets is choosing their blog nicknames without thinking about the future. Never once in all their little lives have I called them Pigtail or Pirate in person, and soon they’re both going to outgrow those monikers anyway. If you’re going to call your kids something else, go with something generic or that will grow with them.)

The logistical element to blogging safely is no small thing, either. Don’t advertise that you’re traveling and leaving an empty house. Don’t advertise that you’re home alone. This is sometimes harder than it seems on the surface, given the instant nature of social media. If I post an Instagram of the kids in the snow, it’s clear I’m not in Los Angeles. So be smart about it. If I’m traveling alone, or with the kids and The Gorilla’s at home, I worry about it less. If we’re all gone, I just try not to be too obvious about it. This is true for everyone online - not just bloggers. I can’t tell you how often I see people post on facebook that the whole family is going out of town for a week. Don’t live in fear, but don’t tempt fate.

blogging is my favorite

Even though I’m passionate about the topic, I haven’t written much about blogging because most readers here aren’t bloggers. And I didn’t want to bore you with the behind-the-scenes nerdiness of this space.

But every few weeks I have a conversation with a non-blogger and they seem interested in the topic, curious about how it all works, or confused on some of the basics. So here we are. I’m going to be running this series all week, so if you have questions or something you want me to cover, let me know. I am hardly an expert blogger - many of my blogging friends have more readers or better design or make (a lot) more money - but I have been doing this for over four years, attended the conferences and read the books, and it just lights me up.

I’ve been really candid about how blogging changed my life in many ways. A newlywed, walking away from a career, lonely in Los Angeles, I started my first little blog thinking it would be a springboard for a line of letterpress cards I was designing. I wrote about the process and my life and designed the cards, even had them made and went through the steps of setting up an Etsy shop and packaging. And then realized that along the way I’d grown ambivalent about card design, but fallen in love with writing on the internet.

It was like a brick over my head. I’d wanted to be a writer since I was a child, but aside from a few stories and terrible poems, I’d never pursued it. I’d written papers in college, and tens of thousands of email words to my friends after, but television production had consumed my 20’s. By the time I finally got honest about what I really wanted to do with my life, people were doing it all over the world wide web instantly.

I scrapped the letterpress cards, got pregnant, and one day when I was home with a newborn decided that life goes fast and I didn’t want to avoid my dream any longer. That night The Gorilla and I sat on our blue couch with a baby between us and tried to brainstorm a good name for a new blog. Hollywood Housewife was one of the first ideas, but I thought it sounded cheesy on about four levels. The Real Housewives franchise was already very popular and I didn’t love the idea of calling myself a Housewife, because it wasn’t exactly true and because I rebelled against labeling myself in terms of a husband.

But we kept circling back around to it, and none of the other names we thought of sounded as catchy. At the time, we lived directly under the Hollywood sign. I was wrestling with the emotions of new motherhood and no longer working. The name might have made me a little itchy, but it sounded good and it was factual. I bought the domain name.

The name was actually owned by a baker in Florida who was sitting on it hoping to sell to Bravo. He asked for an exorbitant price for Hollywood Housewife dot com, but when I pointed out to him that the Real Housewives websites don’t stand alone (they’re part of the Bravo site) and that there were no plans for a Hollywood version of that show, he negotiated down to a more workable price.

I launched Hollywood Housewife in January 2010, to little fanfare and lots of trepidation. I built the blog using Typepad, the platform I was already familiar with because I used it for my smaller blog. The Gorilla helped me design the banner. He’s a former magazine editor and a photoshop genius, and he’s made every incarnation of the title banner since. From the beginning, he’s been encouraging and enthusiastic about my blog, even when I’ve become so frustrated I wanted to quit. He’s never once told me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t post something personal, and even though the online world definitely isn’t his thing, he’s treated it as seriously as I have. I’m really grateful for this, because I know it’s not true in every blogger marriage.

Most of the new friends I’ve made in the last few years have come through blogging. I met three of my closest friends in LA through twitter, separately. I’m involved in several online blogging groups that started off as talking shop, but became personal friendships. My online relationships are ever-evolving as I stay active online, but I look at the difference from where I was emotionally in 2009 - living thousands of miles from my closest friends and feeling a little swallowed by marriage and motherhood - and where I am now, and I know it wasn’t an accident and I know it started with blogging.

Over the next fews days, I’m going to show you how (and how much) I blog, the tools I use, how I make a few bucks (and how others make a lot), and anything else that might come up. Consider this the HH behind-the-scenes footage, the extra features on the DVD. Wobbly camera and all.

READ ALL THE "Blogging is my favorite" POSTS HERE:

Blogging Boundaries

When I Blog

Blogging and Social Media

Blogging Tools and Resources

How Bloggers Make Money

My Personal Blogging Truths

 

august is everything after

Sixteen days into my self-imposed blog break, I woke up and realized I wasn’t doing it right. The break from creating content for this site was a relief, if only as an item removed from my To Do list, but I wasn’t fully doing what I had set August aside to do: listen. So I tweaked my tweaks, so to speak.

I am so tired of people telling me to put down my internet. Frankly, so irritated by people whining about Pinterest giving them perfection anxiety or bemoaning others’ facebook posts. I believe we know instinctively if we’re holding our phones more than our children’s gaze. Collectively, we can tell if online voices are shouting too loudly and we each need to power down for a bit. Why the constant guilt-sharing?

HH on design mom's "living with kids" house tour!

One of my very favorite things on the internet is Design Mom's Living With Kids series. So imagine my giddiness when she asked me to contribute to it. I got her email late at night (where I'm sure it was morning in her home in France) and I think I actually yelped at the screen.

You can see never-before-posted photos of our home at Design Mom today.

If you're here from the Living With Kids feature, welcome! You can read all about me or check out some of my favorite posts.

I can be found on facebook, twitter, or Instagram. Say hi!

blogging is a lot like golf, part II

This is continued from last week's Blogging Is A Lot Like Golf, part I.

I covered the most basic basics last week, so now I want to address more specifics.  Several people asked me IT-ish type questions, so let me get that out of the way.  I do all of the technical aspects of my blog myself - the design, the widgets, all of it.  But I make it up as I go along, mostly.  I keep a document of some simple coding language, but usually if I need to know something, I just google it.  If it's something really hairy, I set up a help ticket with the Typepad team.  All of this to say that although I do all the backend for my own blog, I am not the person to ask about that sort of thing.

On with the show:

How much do you have to post?

There is a school of thought that one should post every day (or almost every day) just to get into the rhythm of it.  I did this at first, and I do think it helped me find my voice and my blogging style.  Some of those early posts are just terrible, but you have to write the terrible posts in order to recognize the good ones. 

One thing that I suggest to everyone, new or veteran blogger, is to have a topic schedule that keeps you and your readers on track.  With the exception of holiday weeks, I always post a Mommy Monday and a Friday Links.  My readers know this, consequently my traffic is highest on these days.  Not only do my readers know that I will have something new up on Mondays and Fridays, they also know the general content of those days.  I have readers who only come to HH on Mondays.  They like the parenting stuff, and don't care too much about the beauty/home/entertainment stuff.  I also have readers who always skip Mondays.  They're not parents, so that topic doesn't interest them. 

blogging is a lot like golf

I often compare blogging to golfing. It may be a hobby, or it may be more than that. It may be fun and and it may be exactly how you want to spend your whole weekend. But with both, you're going to end up spending a lot of time, a good chunk of money, and beating yourself up with frustration.

Unlike golfing, blogging isn't something that the general public accepts as a hobby. With narrowed eyes they ask "Where are you trying to go with that?" or "Are you making any money?" And then as bloggers we scramble to monetize and grow a huge audience and generally rob ourselves of the joy of it.

But then something happens - we write a post we're proud of, we have an inspiring conversation with another blogger - and we remember why we do this. Because we love it.

Don't start blogging if you're not interested in blogging.

Don't start blogging if you're looking to make a bunch of money.

Don't start blogging if you don't have anything to say. But then again, everyone has something to say.

I get a lot (a lot) of questions about blogging. I do not (do not) consider myself an expert in any way, but if y'all are going to keep asking, then I figure you want to hear the answer.

So, a few questions and answers I get often about blogging:

i did not throw up or faint on the pioneer woman. but almost.

I live in Los Angeles.  I've seen Renee Zellweger at the dry cleaners and Meryl Streep at a cocktail party.

But I have never fanned out on someone quite so much as I did tonight. 

Part of it is that I feel a kinship with Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.  We're both from a similar upbringing in Oklahoma.  We both moved to Los Angeles when we were young.  Only one of us went back home and found some sanity, and the other one stayed on the west coast sinking deeper and deeper into insanity.  (That would be me, in case you're unclear.) 

The other part of it is that she's an amazing blogger.  And I wanted to tell her that.  She's been a major, major influence on me.  Not just for blogging.  For life.

I was (literally) first in line.  This involved an early morning trip to Barnes & Noble to secure a wristband.  Still, when I realized I was (literally) first in line, I got the giggles.  I mean I really guffawed.  I sat on the floor and marveled at my line placement for many minutes.

You can ask Elizabeth, my new friend who was next in line.  (Elizabeth, I wish I had taken of picture of you.  Why didn't I?!)  Elizabeth will tell you how I was really quite hysterical over the whole "first" thing.

Then my friend Anna showed up, and she helped me ditch the Nervous Maniacal Laughter.  (You might remember Anna from my F+C party.)  She also gave dirty looks to the VIPs who actually got to go first.  But she didn't mean it.  Anna's bark is worse than her bite.  (Anna, am I blowing your street cred if I say that?) 

Newly pregnant Anna was glad that we were at the front.  This meant that we didn't have to wait in the line that wound through the third floor, then stretched down to the second floor.

Instead it meant that we could eat a long dinner, with loads of cheese and french fries. 

And I could forget about my cheeks shaking, and hands fumbling.

The night I met Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.

*

most photos courtesy of Anna, ABDPBT

thinking of moving to LA? what I would say if you asked me.

A few months ago I got an email from a hometown acquaintance asking advice for a young girl in her church who was thinking about moving to Los Angeles.  I fired off a reply without giving it much thought, but then realized (as this was not the first time someone had posed such a question to me) that this might be of interest to some of you. 

I was a silly nincompoop when I moved to Los Angeles straight out of college in the summer of 2001.  I don't know what I thinking.  I could never do such a crazy thing now.  Thank goodness we're so stupid when we're young, because it can change us for the better. 

But if you're asking, here's my unedited answer:

Hi,

My advice is: Don't Chicken Out! I think a lot of people get nervous about how expensive or scary LA is and they miss out on a great opportunity. Now, don't get me wrong, LA is crazy expensive and (can be) scary, but I believe it's worth taking the leap.

For apartments, it's a must in the beginning to have at least one roommate. You'll sink quickly out here without it because rentals are so much money.  I'm also a big believer in having a support system and a roommate can be that in a very important way. Cast your net wide when looking for roommates or jobs, you just never know what friend of a friend of a friend might be willing to share in the adventure or take a chance. My first roommate was a sorority sister I barely knew, and I got my first job through her uncle's ex-girlfriend's brother. That is no joke. Contact everyone you know.

L.A. is a huge city and there is no shortage of "backup jobs" that can help you pay the rent while you're pursuing your dream. Waitressing, bartending, Starbucks, don't be ashamed to round out your income there, many people here do, but give yourself a time limit. (For example, "I will only wait tables for 6 months while trying to find something in the entertainment industry. At ____ date, I will re-evaluate my goals." Or something like that.) 

Hope this helps!  Best of luck to you.

laura

Take everything I say with a gallon of table salt.

This note was aimed at a young girl, but I believe that it's never too late to re-create your life.  I know a lot of people who have wasted a lot of time, and a lot of people who didn't waste enough time.  The key is finding the balance, no matter where you are or how old.

 

If someone knows the the secret to that conundrum, please message me immediately. 

photo by ClickFlashPhotos

furniture in my yard

I was a senior in high school, but I had been reading Stephen King since the 4th grade. Maybe that’s why I always looked at the furniture prank as scary and not funny.

It was the fall and I was deeply involved with the school musical that required me to be at rehearsals every night at 6pm. In between drill team after school and play practice in the evening, I usually beat a path home in my little brown Mazda for a snack and a break.

As usual, I picked up the phone as soon as I walked in the door. I never dropped the habit of calling my mom when I got home, even though I was long past the age that she worried about me after school. I was telling her every detail of my uneventful day as I strolled through the front hall and glanced out at the yard that slopes up towards our street. I lost all train of thought.

“Mom.” I said, flummoxed. “There are recliners in the yard.”

“What? What are talking about?” She was used to my dramatics.

In the large yard directly in front of our home, there were two old leather recliners facing each other about 10 yards apart. Less than fifteen minutes earlier, I had driven down the driveway and past this yard, then empty.

I tried to describe the scene to mom, who was sitting at her office and still on the phone. I didn’t know what to think. It was so strange. I hadn’t heard a thing and yet someone had deposited and arranged the chairs within minutes of my arriving home and looking out the window.

My parents weren’t home from work when I left for music practice, still confused. I didn’t tell anyone at rehearsal about the chairs, only because my churning teenage mind was otherwise occupied by the time I reached the stage.

Later that night, as I came around the curve of my street, I could see the silhouette of the recliners against the moon and suddenly remembered the mystery. So strange. Stranger still that my dad hadn’t moved them.

The next afternoon was reminiscent of the one before. Only this time when I looked out the window, a long black couch was facing the house in between the two leather recliners. The third day, a large busted television joined the party.

The television had appeared while no one was home, the culprit possibly worried that I was now watching. Our yard looked ridiculous, and I had already heard a few snickers at school even though I wasn’t saying a word.

small town

Until we moved to the big town twenty miles over (pop. 25,000), we lived in the one-stoplight oklahoma town where I spent most of my childhood (pop. 3,500).  

My father's law office was in a large brick building with a rickety red-carpeted elevator just a block from the town square.  We lived in a ranch style home painted a soft yellow that sat on 40 acres off a dusty dirt road.

From Hollywood, it is 2,000 miles and one left turn.

I think about this map dot - if it even makes it on the map - every day.  The small town gossip, the annual fish festival, the way everyone in town knew my last name and where my momma worked and which van was ours.  

I think about the hundreds of thousands of towns across the country just like it, full of good people and suspect people and crying babies and mangy dogs.  I think about how I wish I were there and some of them probably wish they were here.  

I think about what it was like to grow up without a drive-thru in my zip code, or an airport within 200 miles.  But how my sister could get gas at the local Country Store and forget to pay, and it was okay because they would just call the brick building that bore my daddy's name and tell him that the van drove off again.  

I think about all that, and I get a lump in my throat.  My daughter will never know a life like that.  The town now has more than one stoplight and multiple drive-thrus, even though the population hasn't changed much.  The pace of life is still slower there than in Hollywood, but only by their drawls.  They all have tivo and wifi in their living rooms, just like I do.  

So in a way, all our technology shrinks the world.  But I've never felt so far away.  

photo by clinton steeds