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	<title>WIRL Project &#187; Big Tribe</title>
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	<description>What It&#039;s Really Like.</description>
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		<title>I Don&#8217;t Need a Huge Tribe, Just A Small Circle</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-dont-need-a-huge-tribe-just-a-small-circle/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-dont-need-a-huge-tribe-just-a-small-circle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Jul 2015 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest WIRL]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Be Authentic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Tribe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Small Circle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Write]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=6979</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the past month or so I&#8217;d given myself the same morale-boosting pep talk dozens of times: &#8220;I know it&#8217;s scary, but you can Do This! You can learn from experts! You can talk to people who are passionate about the same things you are! You can FIND YOUR TRIBE!&#8221; I was preparing myself mentally and emotionally for my first Blog Conference. I was about to step out as a Blogger, to begin this new chapter in my life as something more than just Mommy. It was my debutante ball of sorts, but with less High Society and more Middle School Awkward. I was scared to death. Besides the worry over the talking and the listening and the learning and the networking keeping me up at night, I was also nervous to leave my babies. I&#8217;d never spent two nights away from my kids. I knew they&#8217;d be fine without me. I&#8217;d miss them more than they&#8217;d miss me, but still: It was going to be hard. Then, after weeks of worry and nervous anticipation, it was the first weekend in June and I was there on a small, beautiful campus in Baltimore, ready to Get Schooled, ready to Take My Blog Beyond, ready to find my Tribe. Ready&#8230;or not. I started the first afternoon by attending an informative and helpful workshop on Writing and Editing. Taught by experienced bloggers, writers, and editors, it was a crash course on when you may need to hire the services of a professional editor and what you can expect the process to be like. I headed from there over to a class called Mastering Pinterest. It was exactly what it promised to be: A How-To course on the secrets and tricks to conquering the Pinterest algorithm to drive traffic to your site. Taught by the Queen of Pinterest herself (she must be, she&#8217;s a Pinterest genius), the course provided real-life tips on making your posts pinnable and your pins searchable. It was great ready-to-apply information that could make a difference in your blog traffic immediately&#8230;if you&#8217;re ready to Master Pinterest, that is. I have an account. I think I&#8217;ve pinned five things and they&#8217;re all my own articles. I know that&#8217;s not how you Do Pinterest, but I don&#8217;t get Pinterest. I don&#8217;t want to get it, yet I furiously scribbled notes during the class, believing that to be the Blogger I want to be, I&#8217;d better figure out the Pinterest Beast, and fast. I left the session feeling completely overwhelmed. Add to that the fact that I still wasn&#8217;t sure how, exactly, one goes about &#8220;finding her tribe,&#8221; and the fact that I stayed up way too late listening to brilliant writers read the best of their best, and the fact that I woke up way too early for not having a 3-year old in my bed and two bigger boys whispering in my ear that &#8220;It&#8217;s morning! Let&#8217;s go downstairs, please, Mommy! Now, Mommy!&#8221; and I just lost my shit. It was 5am on Saturday morning, with most of the weekend still stretched out before me, and I sat on my bed and cried. I called my husband: &#8220;I don&#8217;t belong here! I don&#8217;t want to Master Pinterest! I don&#8217;t wanna find my tribe! I already have one and I miss you guys&#8230;I want to come home!&#8221; Sam reassured me that he and the kids were, somehow, managing to survive in my absence and that I should NOT come home. &#8220;You&#8217;ll be glad you stayed once it&#8217;s over,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Just stick it out and don&#8217;t try to be something you&#8217;re not. If you don&#8217;t want to Master Pinterest, you don&#8217;t have to. Just try to have fun.&#8221; So I put my brave face back on and went to breakfast. On Saturday, I learned a few things: I don&#8217;t have to Master Pinterest. I don&#8217;t have to build a Facebook community or have a Fans of my Blog Page. I don&#8217;t have to become a brand&#8230;.but if and when I choose to, I&#8217;ll know what to do and how to do it. All I have to be is authentic. That&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s enough. The women who organized the conference and who taught us what they&#8217;ve learned about Blogging as a Business, Making Money as a Writer, using Instagram, and Building Your Book from an idea to a hard copy you can hold in your hands, know exactly what they&#8217;re talking about. These women are smart, driven, hard-working, and highly accomplished. They&#8217;re inspirational and supportive. They&#8217;re also funny as hell. I learned that I don&#8217;t need a huge tribe to feel supported. I need a small circle of real friends. (I found some!) I don&#8217;t need a million page views a month or for an article to &#8220;go viral&#8221; to accomplish my goal. My goal is simply to write. I learned that, if I want to write for an audience, I need to write and write and write and to submit and submit and submit. I can do that. I want to do that. I don&#8217;t have to do more than that&#8230;I don&#8217;t have to BE more than that. But I&#8217;m keeping my notes on Pinterest&#8230;just in case I change my mind. That shit was gold. Lesson Learned: I did it. I saw the boundaries of my comfort zone and I stepped over the line into uncharted territory. I defined my goals: I want to write. It&#8217;s as simple as that. One of my favorite lines of the weekend came not from a session but from the lunch table: My friend Jen said (and I&#8217;m paraphrasing here because I had put my notebook away), &#8220;If you&#8217;re going to be a writer, you&#8217;re going to have to hustle. Might as well hustle for something you&#8217;re passionate about.&#8221; I&#8217;m not passionate about becoming a brand. But I&#8217;m ready to hustle for my writing. I&#8217;m glad I went. I&#8217;m glad I stayed. I&#8217;m glad Nickelodeon hosted the Saturday night party because, damn: I haven&#8217;t danced to Sir Mix a Lot or The Bangles in way too long. &#160;  *This WIRL was originally published on Live Laugh and Learn &#160; Join The Conversation! Easily contribute your story here. &#160; About the Author… Sarah Harris is a mom, a writer, and a filterer of photos. She is constantly seeking Peace &#38; Quiet and Additional Storage on her phone. You can find her at Live, Laugh, and Learn, on Twitter (@skh4102), and on Instagram (@sarah.livelaughlearn). Her writing has been featured on Scary Mommy, The Mid, BonBon Break, and Mamalode, which almost makes up for the fact that she hasn’t been able to drink a cup of hot coffee without reheating it in eight years.  ]]></description>
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