May 29, 2013

Crystal

 

This post is part of a weekly feature called the Passion Series…enjoy!

 

I met Crystal through a fairly new social network called Kumbuya. She responded to my request to feature bloggers in this series, and is just like me in too many ways to ignore. Her specialties include writing, blogging, social media, photography and design, as well as video editing. Her blog, That Girl Crystal, is a colorful combination of her portfolio, resume, social media case studies, and just day-to-day awesomeness.

 

While her and I have a lot of creative hobbies in common, there are a lot of things she’s done that I aspire to do in the future, like public SPEAKING. Because of her theater background (did I mention she has a theater background), she is very comfortable speaking in front of large groups of people (enviably so). She’s also held actual writing jobs for popular web communities like Ning and Wet Paint (enviably so). And aside from all of the awesome, she’s funny. Just listen to the way she talks about her husband.

 

People say that watching TV all the time won’t get you anywhere, but my TV obsessions got me a husband (indirectly) and a job with Wetpaint in 2006 that became a new career.

 

And about her functionality.

 

I function in binary. Example: if you ask me for advice, I’ll either never get around to it or send you a five page manifesto with links and spreadsheets within 24 hours. There is no in between.

 

Here’s what she had to say.

 

Has blogging helped you in any emotional or creative way? 

 

When I started blogging, it was back in the days of OpenDiary and it was very much a substitute for old school diaries. It was cringe-worthy, but I feel like we should all have those pre-teen, teenage, and twenty something feelings written down for posterity somewhere. Looking back on it now, I can draw a clear line between the person I was then and who I am now… what experiences shaped my personality, what life lessons particularly schooled me, and what mistakes I knew I wouldn’t repeat. In a creative way, I’ve always been a writer; you can ask my elementary and middle school teachers. At first, I thought that switching to journaling and then blogging was a shift away from the creative stories I used to write when I was younger, but then I realized that it was just a primer for writing about the life experiences I hadn’t had yet.

 

Has blogging daily/weekly helped you achieve any personal goals?

 

My weekly columns are so unloved right now (thanks to a couple of job developments and the resulting time crunch), but setting those weekly writing slots for myself was a goal achievement in itself. Giving myself a reason to write…to collect my thoughts and get them in the computer every week is something I’m not so good at left to my own devices. Setting a deadline makes it happen more reliably.

 

Does the ritual of daily/weekly blogging give you motivation to pursue things you are passionate about?

 

Not only the motivation, but it helps me process my passions, as well. I got thrown into the community management and social media world around seven years ago, but it’s only in the past year or so that I’ve really started talking about my experiences… blogging, attending meetups, networking with other community managers. Often, I’ll blog about an event after I attend it, and during that process, I revisit the information learned, sometimes taking new things out of the same material. Always having that incoming flow of knowledge just makes me want to get out there and learn more. 

 

To find out more about this awesomely creative gal, visit her blog. Give it a peek. She’s sweet and ya might learn something. Also, she was cool enough to link to A Novel Quest in her side bar! Probably the second blog or so that has ever linked to me. Excuse me while I get cracking on my reciprocation. :)

 

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This post is part of a series on bloggers who have found direction or passion through blogging. If you would like to be featured in the Passion Series, please contact me through this form with responses to the above questions, and share your passions. Thanks!

 

See all Passion Series posts >>

 

Monique Muro

Monique is an exceedingly happy human from LA. She runs the blog A Novel Quest, and writes. A lot.

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