<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>WIRL Project &#187; Write</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.wirlproject.com/tag/write/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.wirlproject.com</link>
	<description>What It&#039;s Really Like.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 14 Apr 2026 19:51:44 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.37</generator>
	<item>
		<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>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-dont-need-a-huge-tribe-just-a-small-circle/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I Left My Shy Self At Home This Year: BlogU15</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-left-my-shy-self-at-home-this-year-blogu15/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-left-my-shy-self-at-home-this-year-blogu15/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2015 17:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest WIRL]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology/Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Goals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Not so Super Mom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge BlogU]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Write]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=7006</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last year I went to The Blog University known as #BlogU. Hashtag getschooled. And there was definitely a lot of schooling to be had there. Writing, promoting, making money, social media, &#8220;branding&#8221; your blog, treating your blog like a business. A lot. And despite the notion that one should go to a blogging conference to learn about blogging, I actually learned more about myself last year. I learned that in a large group of people that are not my family or friends, I will revert back to my introverted and shy younger self. It prevented me from meeting a lot of fellow bloggers that I was quite comfortable with chatting online in various writing groups. People who share my love for this medium and who understand what it means to want and to need to do this. I wasn&#8217;t 100% sure I should even be going to BlogU since until then I hadn&#8217;t considered my blog to be much more than a hobby and an outlet for me to write. (Of course, this might be a bit of an understatement since I do have a facebook page and twitter account under my blog name&#8211;but I guess part of the vanity of writing is wanting people to actually read what you write.) I didn&#8217;t know if I could justify spending the time or money on what was (for me) the huge luxury of a conference. I had dabbled with a few small social media campaigns and a sponsored post that helped offset the cost, so that sort of sealed the deal for me in my mind &#8212; if I had already invested the time and energy in those efforts, maybe there was more to my whole experience as a blogger than writing every once in a while and begging my friends to read it. At it&#8217;s most basic, blogging is writing and I&#8217;ve been doing it ever since I can remember. I am certainly not the best, and I am definitely not prolific, but I believe I am a good writer&#8211;even if I might be a crappy blogger. I felt that I had a unique &#8220;brand&#8221;, but not necessarily a unique perspective&#8211;which seems to be a key to blogging success. But then, success is defined differently for all of us. The main reason that I feel BlogU is for me is that it is approachable. No one there is keeping tabs on how often (or not) I&#8217;m posting. They don&#8217;t care if I don&#8217;t have some sponsorship deal with a brand. They care about me because I care to be there. I want to learn whatever it is that will elevate me as a blogger and a writer&#8211;whether that&#8217;s writing for money or simply writing for myself. It is about our craft and how we can do it better: for ourselves, for our readers and for our families (as a potential source of income). I was determined to have a more successful year at #BlogU15 this year. My shy, introverted (and coincidentally Middle-School-aged) self was nowhere to be found. (Except on the bulletin board full of #MiddleSchoolAwkward pictures for the Nickelodeon-sponsored #MiddleSchooltotheMax dance party on Saturday night.) But despite the previous year&#8217;s shyness, I really made an effort to meet and talk to more of the little people from inside my computer&#8230; &#160; But enough about me, there are SO many things to know and do depending on what your goals are for your blog or yourself as a professional writer. I did make an effort to focus on my blog and what I wanted to take away from #BlogU15 as a writer and a blogger. The things I learned about blogging are these: Blogging is work. If you think this shit writes itself, you&#8217;re crazy. I&#8217;m sure some people can sit down and bang out a post in 15 minutes but it takes me some serious time. (In fact, a good bit of THIS post was started last year after #BlogU14. I never finished it then, but a lot of the thoughts stuck with me this year.) Blogging is not merely writing.  Writing is just the beginning of it. There is design, analytics and social media involved. All of which are time consuming and necessary to different degrees, depending on your goals. Blogging is universal. The heart of blogging is communication. We write to share, to teach, and to reach out&#8211;regardless of the topic. You can be a parenting blogger, a fashion blogger, a food blogger or a lifestyle blogger but no matter your genre, you are speaking to an audience. And they are listening. That is communication. &#160;  *This was originally published on TheNotSoSuperMom Join The Conversation! Easily contribute your story here. &#160; About the Author… Melanie Madamba is The Not so Super Mom: recovering nerd, mother of three, and coffee addict. She would never want to be confused with a Super Mom or anyone else who seems to have it together. She’s not trying to do it all–she’s not even trying to do it right. She’s just trying to get something, ANYTHING, done. She writes to escape the laundry and to pretend someone is listening to her. If you are trying to avoid your laundry, you can kill some time checking her out on Facebook or twitter.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.wirlproject.com/i-left-my-shy-self-at-home-this-year-blogu15/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What it&#8217;s like being a blogger</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/what-its-like-being-a-blogger/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/what-its-like-being-a-blogger/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2015 15:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Renee Guerrero]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology/Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Challenge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[job]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Persistance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sharing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WIRL Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Write]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=6423</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hi there! I am Renee, hailing from New York, 28 years old, engaged to the best guy ever. I’ve been blogging for about two years now, at first it was for weight loss accountability, but I found out slowly, that I liked sharing my life. I never was a “great” writer growing up, I had run on sentences in anything that was written and I babbled too much. That part of me hasn’t ever changed; I still babble way too much, my sentences are either too long or too short. Luckily my fiancé was a teacher so he usually proof reads my posts if I feel that they aren’t what they should be. I work full time Monday thru Friday so my blogging day usually starts around 6:30 a.m. when I get home from the gym. If I have a post planned already, I’ll tweak things I need to or just make sure it’s ready to go and schedule it. If nothing is planned, I’ll see what’s in my notebook to write about and start brain storming what angle I want to use, I also try to use pictures to make posts more interesting. &#8230;I found out slowly, that I liked sharing my life. Before leaving for my full time job I use Hoot Suite to schedule social media shares, twitter, facebook, and google +. That helps get my posts out during the course of the day without having to sit in front of the computer and actually sending out the posts. On the weekends I usually try and do my “larger” posts, ones that require more time and concentration than just a quick 30 minute post. Another thing I leave for the weekends is taking pictures, better sunlight, and more time to take “money shoots.” I’ve learned that blogging is like a second job, it requires time, patience, persistence and good content. Even as a blogger that has been doing this for two years it’s not easy, there will always be bloggers that are better, that have more followers. The numbers they have are huge, the amounts of comments that are on daily posts are HIGH, and nowhere near what mine are. Pangs of jealousy usually sting, but I think I don’t have the patience to grow my blog sometimes; on the other hand I love writing so I won’t be stopping anytime soon.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.wirlproject.com/what-its-like-being-a-blogger/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
