Everyone has a way to creatively express their heart (whether they know it or not) and everyone needs somewhere to express it.
This is a story of finding that somewhere.
I’ve been a writer ever since I first awkwardly held a pencil and scribbled the letter E backward. My outlet started as scraps of printer paper and half-empty school journals, and then turned more sophisticated (well, just more digital). I think I was 10 when I got my first website. Then the social media era commenced, with the flurry of MySpace posts (2007), then Facebook Notes (2008), and finally, my blog.
Or should I say, blogs. I’ve had three of them.
My first official blog was called “Explorers: The Writings of a Young Teacher”. I started it the summer before my senior year of high school (2010) to document a two-week kid’s camp I led. Every day or so I typed what I learned or humorous stories about the children. My second blog, and most used, was “There’s Beauty in the Vulnerability” (est. January 2011). I’m pretty sure I spent more time typing posts there than working on my final 20-page high-school essay. Well, definitely. I wrote on it for six years.
Well, excluding my furlough on “Explorers” (2013). I was studying to be a teacher and wanted something new. Then facing my last year of university, exhausted and weak, beauty in the vulnerability was the truth I needed again (2014). Three years later, when I joined the YWAM Bethlehem team, I built a Weebly Website (2017) that was beautiful and simple (despite being a tech nightmare). My creative outlet was at home there, finally.
However, what about the rest of my blogs? After eight years, posts were scattered across the Internet like a suitcase dumped out across a whole neighborhood. Not that I minded that my heart was spilled for everyone to see. I’m creative. That’s what we do. And we love it.
But I’d much rather my creative heart have a home for suitcases to explode in. We all do, right?
On my last week of my YWAM School of Writing (April), I still didn’t think it was possible. But our Publishing & Marketing speaker replied, “Oh, you can do that!” And throughout the week, we did. I’ve been setting it up this blog ever since, using my new iPad and Apple Pencil to scribble my actual handwriting for the header. I still swoon a little bit when I see it.
Finally, when I came to writing the first official post of the “one blog to rule them all” today—I was shocked to see “300” total. On the dot. No more, no less. So, how do you write 300 blog posts in eight years? Do you make some sort of epic goal to get there? Do you have a checklist to mark off every year?
Nope.
Just do what you love, and have somewhere to put it.
It’s as simple as that.
Thank you to my incredible “building” team, Thomas and Margaret Umstattd (WordPress extraordinaires), Matias and Samatha Arrendondo (my SOW leaders), my dad (who saved kaylanorris.com since I was 10), my brother Daniel (who hosts this site) and most especially to Google (searching “How do I…?” in Google is the best tech advice you’ll ever receive. I dare you to try it!)
