Maybe I have a plan!

I initially opened my Etsy shop in November of 2012 because I had started making some knit hats for a few people, and it seemed like an easier way to transfer money on their end than to just go through straight paypal. I went ahead and made a few listings, both those hats that I'd made for them and one or two things that I'd made for myself and loved. My idea was that I enjoyed knitting, and this would be a fun way to support my hobby....by doing my hobby! My "business model" was not to kill myself by making a bunch of stock that I'd have to front money for and keep on hand, but that I could just knit a sample for photographing and listing, and then make subsequent items as people ordered them. I considered the fact that I had any sales at all before Christmas - and from outside that initial group of people! - to be a huge success.

Life happened a few months later, and I took an extended hiatus from the shop. At the end of last summer, I just had this urge to be creative again. I started small, by writing and doing some personal projects. It didn't take long, but I ended up re-opening my shop just a few weeks later. Same idea, no real stock, just make orders as they come. Surprising me again, some orders did come! Throughout the holidays last year, my busy season, I enjoyed what I was doing, but didn't really have a plan. I've never really had one for either the shop or this blog. But gradually, I felt like I could get a lot more done if I just thought a little ahead, put it down on paper.

I was listening to one of my new very favorite podcasts (Elise Gets Crafty) and they were talking about the importance of being consistent if you want people to tune in. Well, duh. You'll obviously get a lot more people reading if you both a) show up on some sort of reliable schedule and b) build up a backlog of posts that people might start finding you through search engines. I thought, well, that sounds like something I could do, blog more consistently. I'm definitely not going to set myself up for failure by making a grand declaration of blogging every.single.day, but maybe a routine might make sense.

Then, despite how fan-girly this is starting to sound, I read one of Elise's recent posts and she highlighted one of the ways she likes to stay organized. This reminded me of the sketchbooks I used to have during college, and the meticulously organized daily planners I'd toted around in high school and beyond. Despite how I love my iPhone and use technology daily to stay organized....there's just something about physically writing things down that makes them so much clearer for me, more memorable.

So, I started writing. And because sometimes the blank pages of a fresh notebook make me feel a bit uncertain, like I'm going to mess it up if I don't plan out what I want to say, I told myself to just start. It doesn't really matter, just start.

I've done a little blog organization. I thought about the things I've written about most, and went back through old posts to properly tag them. If you're on my home page, these links, along with the search box, are at the bottom of the page. I've even managed to finally write something in my "about me" page. I had a really hard time with that! I've chosen to be somewhat anonymous online, so I didn't want to go all out with my life story, but at the same time I wanted to give enough detail to describe the person behind the blog. I started about a dozen times, and fully rewrote it about half that many, so hopefully I've struck a decent balance.

I laid out a plan and a calendar to prepare for next year's (hopefully) busy season. This way I can track my efforts to pre-make some of my more popular items over the summer to take some of the pressure off of next holiday season. I've also started jotting down the to-do lists and ideas that keep my mind racing during wee morning hours. Top of the list, oh I can't wait to do that one! Since I do most of my shop work in the night time hours, I just don't have the lovely light that most Etsy-ers seem to have for their product listings. Once the basement is finished, I still won't have sunlight, but I'll have a space to set up some lights and hopefully take some halfway decent product photos! It's also highly probable that I simply don't have the skills that many other Etsy artisans do, but hopefully I can take what I've learned in the couple photography classes I've taken and not completely embarrass myself.

Finally, I've laid out a loose blogging schedule for myself. Yet again, in a rather timely, sort of getting weird kind of way, last week Elise blogged about, well, blogging. The gist of her post is that it's important to write things you feel passionate about. You really can't fake authenticity, and if you're writing just to get a post up, it's going to show. Just like it's boring to read something that feels forced, it's boring to write. Part of the reason I post somewhat infrequently is because I only want to write when I have something to say. I've found though, that just by outlining a schedule for myself, I think that I might have enough to say to check in twice a week. So tentatively, I think Tuesdays and Thursdays sound like decently achievable days to commit to. I hope that I can keep it interesting by varying topics by those categories I identified.

So I definitely don't have any sort of plan to quit my job and knit or blog for a living, but I feel good giving myself a bit of direction.