Stepping off the Pedestal

Have you ever had a great idea?  An idea so cool it was going to revolutionize the world.  An idea so awesome that it made you feel that although other people had explored it, you were going to rock it so hard you would take it to the next level?  People would look in awe and venerate you for your genius.  You know the kind of idea I mean.  The type that makes you all motivated and inspired.

 I have.  I thought I was going to make ATUA the best blog about writing.  I worked and worked on plans and structure. It was going to be UNBELIEVABLE!!  (Cue the kittens, rainbows and unicorns.)

My face, exactly

Enter this.

For those of you who don't feel like clicking, the gist of this blog post by Kristen Lamb is that writers shouldn't have blogs about writing.  Wait a minute, you'll say, isn't her blog about writing?  Yes. It is about writing, but she has something I don't: experience.  Kristen is a published author and has an established platform: I don't. Setting aside the fact that I'm not a pro like her, her post points out something very important: writers who blog for writers condemn themselves to a very limited readership. 

So after I had gone through the five stages of grief, I decided I still wanted to keep ATUA alive. What was I going to write about?  I thought and thought and couldn't find anything.  I then talked to Mr. ATUA for an hour on the phone, enumerating all the things I enjoyed in life and that I could write about. We both agreed that here were enough travel and cooking blogs out there.  Then what?

That's when I came to the realization that, despite what I had believed until now, I am quite a "normal" person. Although some of my interests and tastes are not mainstream, I'm not that far from the norm that I may be called a hipster.  I'm just one slightly geeky girl who likes to write and who's not allowed to write about it. In the end, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find anything to write about.  What is wrong with me?

I'm terminally uninspired. 

There.  I've said it.  It's out in the world.  Now I could just give up and abandon ATUA but I don't want to do that.  I want to fight it!  That's right.   I'm going a quest for inspiration. I will go out into the world and I won't stop searching until I've found inspiration.

So stay tuned.  In the next few weeks you'll see changes to ATUA (layout, names and titles) but you'll also get to enjoy my adventures.

Rocking the knight uniform.  The horse costs a fortune...

Have you ever had an idea that you had to give up because it wasn't going to work?  How did you overcome the setback?  Did you end up coming up with comething even better?  Let me know!