Blogger Interview – Jennifer

Hi! My name is Jennifer McCullough and I blog at http://www.Mommyhooddom.com. I’m honored to be featured on Blogging on The Side today! I started blogging in October of 2013 and this site has been a huge help every step of the way. Thank you so much Paula, Becky and Danielle!

I live with my husband and our 2-year-old son in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m a “mature”first-time mom. Forty-two is the new 22, right? Before my son was born, I worked for almost 20 years in PR and marketing for small businesses. Now, I’m a work-from-home mom. On my blog, I write funny stories about motherhood, the terrible twos, blogging, breastfeeding and socks. I also write about missing my mom. She died in 2011 when I was 8 months pregnant. We were best friends. Writing about her makes me feel better, and so does interacting with other bloggers and readers.

One of the reasons I started blogging was to connect with other parents. I feel like I went into motherhood completely clueless. I still feel that way a lot of the time. Not having my mom with me and living so far away from my family makes it hard to know if I’m doing it right sometimes. I read as many blogs and parenting-related websites as I can. One of my blogging goals is just to learn from other parents and hopefully get a comment or two occasionally that says something like, “Ah no Jennifer, that won’t mess him up too bad.” I’m pretty open about my own parenting snafus and lessons learned so if someone can learn something from my mistakes, well, I think that’s awesome. At a minimum, I like to give readers something to laugh about. 

I’d also like to become a better writer through blogging. I’ve always loved business and creative writing, but blog writing is different and so much fun! I can be a little zany and nobody’s going to edit me, which may not be a good thing now that I think about it. I’m going to SITS Bloggy Boot Camp in 2014 and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m excited to learn how to be a better blogger.

It would be the gravy on top if I could make a little money from blogging eventually. I’ve signed up with Sverve, Massive Sway, Social Spark, Mom Central and Google AdSense along with a couple of affiliate networks, but I don’t have the numbers to be on anyone’s radar yet. Most of my blog traffic comes from my cousins visiting via Facebook and Pinterest. I spend a lot of time playing around with Twitter, mostly because it’s fun, but I can’t say it drives a huge amount of traffic to my blog. I’m trying to use Google+ more often.

How do you overcome writer’s block?

I haven’t really experienced writer’s block on my blog, but in the past, I’ve experienced it on other writing projects. My best defense is to try to head off writer’s block before it starts. It can feed on itself if you’re not careful. The harder you try to think of something to write, the more resistant your brain becomes. It’s a vicious cycle. So I don’t try to think of things to write. Instead, I think about what’s going on in my son’s life. I think about how I feel. Am I happy, sad, energized, or feeling reflective? I think about what’s coming up in the next few days or weeks. I also read a lot of other blogs and websites. By the time I sit down to write, I usually have an idea pretty well fleshed out and the words somehow seem to come.

I didn’t really set out to try to write a humor blog, but I think most of my posts so far have been kind of funny (to me anyway). My favorite post to date isn’t funny at all though. It’s called, My Mom Died When I Was Pregnant http://www.mommyhooddom.com/2013/09/my-mom-died-when-i-was-pregnant/ and that’s exactly what it’s about. My mom had a rare neurological disease called progressive supranuclear palsy that caused her to have dementia among other things. She was only 62-years-old when she died. This was one of the very first posts on my blog. Writing it was so hard to do, but I’m glad I did.

I think a lot of things can happen to parents to make them feel isolated while raising children. Losing my mom certainly made me feel that way, especially the first year after my son was born. Sharing my story and connecting with people through my blog has been one of the most important self-preserving things I think I’ve done as a mom so far. There’s nothing quite like connecting with another mom who says, “I get you. I really do.” Or, “That was hilarious. Thanks for the laugh!”