Welcome to our first featured Blogger here on Blog Chicks.
This is going to be come a weekly feature. I hope you will all be able to take something away from what each blogger is going to share with us, whether your are a seasoned blogger, or just starting out.
We have such a talented bunch of bloggers in Australia, let us celebrate them!
This week we have Karen Andrews from Miscellaneous Mum.
When did you start your blog?
I’ve been writing online since about 2003, but don’t ‘officially’ start count until I began Miscellaneous Mum in August 2006.
Why did you start blogging?
For a variety of reasons: the first, and I daresay most important, was at the time I was suffering serious post-partum anxiety symptoms following the difficult pregnancy and birth of my second child. I was advised by a counsellor to “get a hobby.” I’d only just been introduced to the blog world, coincidentally, so I figured I could give it a try. Secondly, I saw it as a nice way to get back into my writing, which had been put on long hiatus.
Describe your blog in 20 words or less
“Miscellaneous Mum – searching for the objective correlative, everyday”
(That is the ‘official’ blog title, nowadays. The term ‘objective correlative’ is a literary one, invented by T.S Eliot in an essay he was writing about Hamlet. If you’d like me to explain, it will take me a while; let’s just say I liked it and thought it was a fitting theme for what I try to do when I write.
What are your 5 must have tools for blogging?
Statcounter, Feedburner, Google Reader, Twitter and (not that I use it much anymore) a Technorati Link Generator. Oh, and WordPress, naturally.
What is your favourite part of being a blogger?
The fact that now after a few years of blogging being a relatively disdained and shadowy kind of ‘time-waster’ by people who weren’t sure what it was, now more people realise one can make a name – and money – doing exactly the kind of writing work they do offline. My accountant, for one, is starting to see the light 
What is the biggest thing you have learnt since starting your blog?
If you can’t stand by, or defend, what you write online you have no business publishing it there in the first place.
If you could start again, would you do anything differently?
Good question. People ask me if I could start over would I write under a false name? No. Would I use pseudonym for my husband and children? Um…no. I don’t think so. I’m honest to a fault.
What has been your blog’s biggest achievement?
I’ve been mentioned in the press a few times, most recently in Notebook magazine. I talked about the influence blogging can have for writers at last year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival and mentioned it as well at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.
What advice would do you have for new women bloggers?
Be true to yourself and try not to be jealous of other blogging success stories. Be inspired, yes, but don’t get covetous.
Do you (or do you plan to) make any income from your blog?
Oh, sure. That aspect didn’t worry me in the beginning, but it is a factor now I’m a business and my logo/name “Miscellaneous Press” is a registered Trademark. Monetarily speaking, 2009 is setting out to be the best year by far in terms of income.
What future goals do you have for your blog?
Goals? Part of me wants to rank higher in the assorted “Top ## bloggers” lists around, but that’s just my ego. In all honesty, I just want to write well, keep getting better.
Who are your 5 favourite chick bloggers and why?
Maggie Mason because she’s smart and and funky, Schmutzie because she is kind and eloquent, Alice at Finslippy because she is so witty, Sarah at Slouching Mom because she is a kick-ass writer, and Loobylu because I admire her. She took a year off blogging and I think that – and to come back to it, after – shows real class and commitment.
Thank you so much to Karen for taking time to share a bit of insight into her blogging life with us.
Till next week
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