Everyone who knows us, either virtually or actually, knows that Jack is the social media engine in our partnership.
While I stare out the window at the sheep; dither, procrastinate, and assert that I have nothing of interest to say on my author website or social media channels, Jack’s fingers dance across his keyboard from the crack of 8.30am to the tail end of 5.30pm with barely a discernible pause for lunch.
Blogs, social media posts, short stories and entire novels drip, seemingly effortlessly, from his virtual pen and spread themselves gloriously across the multiple pages of our shared websites, his author website, and the innumerable Word documents that populate his hard drive.
Sitting next to him at the dining table is the adult equivalent of having the desk next to the kid who, in every exam, scribbles enthusiastically over answer sheet after answer sheet while I stare at my blank page with rising hysteria and watch the clock accelerate towards the ‘pens down!’ command.
Why do I find it so difficult to come up with engaging content for this site?
A quick glance back at my posts over the last few months reveal the sad sum of my content procurement – recipes and book reviews. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a big following on here, yet in the past couple of months I’ve received two offers via these pages. The first was an invitation to appear in a prestigious panel of experts on a travel forum (unfortunately I spotted that one too late to accept) and the second was a commission for an article for a high end travel publication.
It makes me realise I’m missing the opportunity to use this site properly.
Although I initially launched it to support the publication of The Banana Road, and for the past year I’ve been largely tied up with a contract to provide marketing content for a specialist travel company rather than cracking on with a new novel, I haven’t stopped writing. I still write pretty much full time – guidebooks, travel features, walking directions, blogs – yet you never get to hear about them on here.
When we were out walking a couple of weeks ago (always the most effective time for my creativity), I started thinking about what I wanted to do as the end of the marketing contract draws near, and I’ve realised that what’s important now is to build our own business. The need to make a living has always pushed our own projects to the back of the queue, trading short term financial gain for long term stability.
Now it’s time to switch that priority and to concentrate on our own business to ensure it not only survives but thrives as we move forward. We have so many plans and exciting new projects on the horizon and I ought to be treating this website in exactly the same way that Jack treats The Real Tenerife and Buzz Trips.
I hope that means that from now on, there’ll be more than just book reviews and recipes on here and that the site will grow and develop in line with our future – whatever that may be.
