The Most Important Entry Ever!

... technologically speaking.

Google Reader is saying bye-bye in a few weeks. I don't really mind because it's always been much too hard to find and follow blogs in GR anyway. I've just used my subscription feed below my blog management tools.

But guess what? That's going away, too. Nothing is going to show up anymore when you sign in to read your favorite blogs! That means the blogs following you, as well as the blogs you follow, will all just disappear as if they were abducted in the middle of the night.

I don't want to lose any of my readers, and I most certainly do NOT want to miss out on reading your blog entries, so I offer the following suggestions:

1. Subscribe to my blog by email now. It's really easy. If you look to the right, there is an area to enter your email right underneath my social media links. You get an email when I write a new blog when and nothing else. Voila!

2. Put your blog on Bloglovin' and follow all your favorites there, too! It's what I've been using now for months, and recently just started following all of you there instead of on my Blogger feed. If it seems daunting or confusing, I promise it's the best thing that will ever happen to you. It's so sleek and easy. You can follow anyone's blog just by copying and pasting the blog's homepage hyperlink into the search bar. (You can categorize, too! Ahh, just awesome.) Here are some other bloggers explaining it all much better than I:

{1/2/3/4}

I hope to still see everyone around after this big change on July 1. And hey, if you forget to make whatever switch suits you best, find me on social media or the blog email – I'll help you step-by-step.

Love y'all!

Boston

As a blogger, I feel like I'm required to write about Boston. However, I didn't want to write about it at all really, at least not until all the facts were fleshed out.

I was in class when one of my classmates announced the news. She said she wanted to prepare us and let us know in case anyone had family in Boston. It was scary to hear, but heartwarming that a classmate wanted to give us time to build a levy for the incoming onslaught of anxiety, fear, and media coverage.

As soon as I got home, I surfed the Internet in friendly places for answers. I didn't go to CNN or Fox News; I went to Tumblr, a place I know is safe for people of all walks of life and an overall supportive community. I knew there I would only find helpful information and a distinct lack of racial profiling regarding who had actually done the bombings. It was sad to see such gruesome images on the site, but it was heartwarming to find messages of hope, links to help, and stories of heroic acts rather than finger pointing.

I stayed away from the media coverage after that. It didn't matter to me the religion, or race, or whatever unimportant details people would focus on about the person or people who bombed those runners; what mattered was healing, lending a helping hand, leading a fair investigation, and recognition of those who were heroes in a true moment of horror.

Since then, all I know is the ethnicity of the suspects at hand has been discussed far too much than is appropriate. I have heard both that one and/or both of the suspects were killed during a city-wide shutdown and manhunt. I have heard there were robberies, more murders, more suspicious packages, more paranoia, more fear. I don't know what to believe because everything is contradictory and fueled with emotion.

To be honest, that's why I don't care what the present facts are. That's why I'm still not really talking about it. I'm more interested in waiting for information fueled solely on facts. Until everyone can take a step back and objectively look at what happened, the information we get will be tainted, biased. It will be injected with our hurt, our anger, our fear, our sadness, our political opinions. That's not healthy or helpful for media messengers or receivers.

And even as a blogger, one I hope you all view as somewhat informed, I feel it's my duty to remain quiet about the whole thing until some clarity can come. It won't arrive for a while, and that's okay. We need time to be angry and grieve. We need time to investigate. But first and foremost, we need to take this time to take care of each other instead of blaming one another.

My thoughts and heart have been with Boston since this happened, but my words? My words have been locked safely inside, waiting for the day when writing about the events of April 15, 2013 will be objective and fact-based. Until then, I hope everyone finds their peace and helps if they can.

But Really...

The other day, I left a comment on my friend Kacey's blog mentioning we should start our own online magazine in case our semi-dashed dreams of being writers start burning at our fingers too badly. I said it in passing, but it stuck with me for some reason. I guess you could say it got me thinking.

Why shouldn't we just go ahead and do that? Why wait for that finger burning? With the insane amount of free web space available and the AMAZING bloggers-turned-friends we have, why not? If we want to write, let's write. Maybe 10 people will read it, maybe 10,000 will. At the end of the day, our little online hub might be filled with just the right voices someone out there needs in a dark moment.

I have a few obvious people in mind for this project – you can find them in my More Words You'll Love section – but I want more of you to join us! If you're interested in really giving this the ol' college try, email me at imgonnadothatgirl@gmail.com.

There's room for everything: humor, videos, art, love and life columns, fashion, pop culture (LOTS OF POP CULTURE), photography, fiction, and everything in between. There are already voices from all over the country, spanning in age and experience, that have something to bring to the table for this project. If you have anything you think the world might want to see but have been holding close, now is the time to let it out into the universe.

The only thing that will need to be decided upon is a theme. There must be a universal something that ties us together as a publication, even if only the fact that we're all bloggers. Help a sista out if you've got great ideas.

No pressure, friends. We're going to do this for fun. We are going to write what we want to write when we want to write it, and you can still publish every word you write on your own blog. If our untitled project takes off, we'll take it from there, but my main goal is to get all of us writing in one place for an audience of other people just like us. They're there. We just have to help them find us.

Whata'ya say?

... And Now for Something Completely Different

As erratic of a blogger as I can be, this is what I love to do. I love to write, and I find myself struggling over why I'm not doing more of it. I'm struggling to find out why I'm not making a living out of it when frankly, it's the only thing I have worth giving to a company or a consumer. I'm a jack of all trades in other veins, but I am only a master of one: the written word. I'm tired of pretending I'm not. I've got to surrender to the letters, darlings.

I am doing the best I can by creating relevant social media accounts for the duality of this blog, the spicy (Gonna Girl) and the sweet (Southern Sheek). I update Facebook frequently, I tweet when I find something particularly fun, and I pin my heart out when I find the best of the best photos, crafts, and fashions. I spread my blog by word of mouth, though admittedly, some business cards would help the lengthy domain name stay with peeps a little longer.

Candidly? I just can't do it alone any more. I'm not getting the response I want, the response I've come to find I need to take a real shot at this thing.

This means that while I want to keep my site as personal and interactive as possible, I need the help of all of you to spread the word about my blog. That's right, you! You lovely folks can help me without much effort at all. And did I mention I'd be appreciative beyond compare? I would consider turning you into an item of worship. Oh, and probably find a way to set up some awesome giveaways when we all meet our goals. Eee! I love teamwork.

Ways My Readers, Far and Wide, Can Help My Dream Actualize

1. Talk to me. Tell me what you love, what you hate. Tell me things on other sites and blogs you love that you would really enjoy seeing here. Tell me everything! I have a tab dedicated to Contact Info, and have included a link to my email address in the first sentence of this numerical bullet.

2. Spread the word to FIVE of your friends, family, pets, frenemies, etc. If you just send them a text or an email, or jot down my web address on the back of their Walgreens receipt, we can make this happen. (Don't forget to tell them to pass the word along if they like what they see!) I've even taken a moment to write a very basic template of what your emails could say if you're lost on words:

"Hey there, friends! I know some of us talk everyday. Others of us are catching up! Whatever our status, I'd really appreciate it if you checked out my friend Rachel's blog. I enjoy reading it because [insert your opinions]. You will too! I've included the link below:
The "I'm Gonna Do That" Girl [and/or] Southern Sheek
Thanks for your time and spread the word if you like what you see!
xoxo, [insert your name here]"

3. Promote both blogs if you wish, but no obligation. Most important is to PICK WHICH BLOG YOU WANT TO PROMOTE! While I'd love for it to be this one, I realize Southern Sheek has more appeal as a "themed" blog.

4. If you do want to promote The Gonna Girl, please make sure people understand the kind of language I use and the topics I cover. While you all know most of what I say is from a place of humor or passion, some might not understand without a warning first. If you don't want to bog down your friends with all of this info, just tell them to check out the About page when they first arrive. That's what it's there for!

5. Submit, submit, submit! I love to share the words, photos, jokes, advice, etc. of others. You can do that at the Submit page.

6. Let you blogger pals know that I promote my friends/reads in a lovely area called More Words You'll Love.
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I promise if you work with me a little, we will all feel a great return. I will feel indebted to my readers, which means I'll hook you guys up with some pretty sweet blog features and giveaways. You will get more entries out of me with better material since I will be able to dedicate the amount of time to these partner blogs the way I have been longing to. Together, you, me, and the new arrivals, will create a great, interactive community where we can all support one another in our vast array of creative endeavors.

So please, take the time to help out your friend, the writer of this blog you keep returning to day after day. If you guys love it, there could be more souls out there who are missing it. I can't stand that thought.

I'm kicking off this May with a feature on my Twitter, Photo A Day May by Fat Mum Slim. Follow the experience on my Twitter, and check it out for yourself if you'd like to participate.

Expect many more great things to come.
I know we can all do this. I'm rooting for us!