Over the past 10 years, I’ve set up countless blogs.
In 2009, it was a fashion blog that I gave up on because I was 15 and had no money to spend on clothes.
In 2013, it was a project for university that I ended up posting on a couple of times and then deleting it.
I’ve had blogs inspired by Gossip Girl, full of sex advice and at one point, I tried to run an organisation/personal finance/adulting blog.
All of them failed, no one read them and I stressed myself out at the prospect of sticking to a weekly schedule because it didn’t look right and I couldn’t find any good images on Unsplash.
Last March, I shut down amyjmcdonnell.com and declared I’d never blog again because I wanted to focus on launching a copywriting business so I’d become self-employed and could leave my awful job.
I spent hours on Squarespace creating the branding, layout, imagery, words. I put my heart and soul into it, finished the designs and pressed publish.
Small Biz Writing was born, hurrah!
Then something strange happened, I got a new job. It offered better money, a really good pension and a way out of the misery my current employer caused me.
Naturally, my passion for Small Biz Writing declined, because I didn’t crave an escape anymore. My working days were no longer filled with dread and depression. Instead, I actually enjoyed getting up every day and commuting to Shoreditch. My colleagues were kind, funny and smart.
My mental health improved instantly, I stopped seeking solace in red wine and I even started exercising regularly.
Small Biz Writing became something I wanted to build up slowly and maybe it’d support me financially in the future, but for now - I was happy with my career.
However, there was still something missing. I’m a qualified writer, it’s what I spent 50k on a degree to do, and while content marketing and SEO writing are my bread and butter, I missed writing for fun.
I missed sitting down with Google Docs open and just writing about something I felt passionate about. I missed writing without checking keywords, metadata and rankings. I missed blogging.
So, I decided to start another blog. This one's for me, myself and I. It’s to write about things I’ve learned, places I’ve been and shit I really care about.
When you’re paid to create content to fulfil a purpose and hit targets it can take the life out of your creativity and this year, I’m claiming that back. I was so preoccupied with building a brand that I lost the passion and this time, but it’ll be different.
Hello! My name is Amy McDonnell and this is my messy, inconsistent, real, unapologetic blog.
