ramblings of a cancelled columnist

so… my column has been cancelled. The first thing I’d like to say is THANK YOU to everyone who supported me and were regular readers.
those who know me know i’m not really a whiner/martyr/cry baby, but I feel like venting a bit so I’m going to… because I can dammit. And honestly I’m a bit bummed.
For one, this was my last form of income coming in…. anyhoo I’ll figure that out later.
So, why did it get yanked?
Because it’s not driving enough traffic/readership.
Lets talk about this. Who was my target audience? The military community, says the editors. And my personal hope was that maybe some more civilian readers would catch on and like the column as well. BUT! Military community – with families it only makes up 1% of the ENTIRE (like everyone in the country) American population. That? Is an extremely tiny percentage. So then, let’s consider who in that 1% actually reads online articles. I venture to say not even half. So what that means? Is that my column was never going to be a huge traffic driver. Because of that I almost feel as though it were set up to fail from the beginning. (but not dwelling on that because it feels too negative) And, lets be honest. In the long run I don’t know that it ever would have been a huge hit among civilian readers because, unless you know an enlisted military or family member personally, our lives aren’t super interesting. I mean, aside from deployment/homecoming our lives are very close to those of anyone else. Me. I’m a mom. I raise my kids and deal with the exact same issues any mom deals with. Sometimes I just have a few extra things on my plate. But in our own way, we all have extra things in life we deal with. So, again I am not sure I offered anything to be written that hasn’t already been said before in the parenting community.
So, in that arena I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m honestly not that surprised. But still a bit disappointed.
1 – because I had already made the stats of my target audience clear…. so if traffic was what the site was looking for, why couldn’t there social media team have tried sharing one of my articles? I don’t need that answered, just a though in my brain.
2 – because dang it, I was just hopeful this would work out against my better judgement.
3 – because once again I’m reminded that military posts just aren’t, and never will be huge hits (not a pity statement, it’s fact just sort of bummer’ish) and sometimes it makes me feel that the majority of the 99% don’t care as much as they say they do about military families as opposed to how popular shit trash reality shows are.
4 – (and this is more of a personal hit) I feel a bit lost. I love writing. Very much. But am I always doomed to fail? For 13 years the military life and community is all I’ve known. For the last 6 parenting in the military. So, am I pigeon holed? Am I trapped in a niche I can never grow from? Again… this is more of a personal issue that I need to think about myself and figure out my path. I love writing… obviously I need to look for a new strength or new avenue…. or maybe I need to consider the fact that I’m not meant to be a writer (gasp, cough, choke… NO!!! haha)

So, I don’t know. That’s where I’m at today. Melancholy. Bummed. Blah. Pensive. Blah. I feel like maybe I should feel relieved. Currently my entire summer is free of responsibility. But I like feeling like I’m connected to something. Like I have a purpose that’s for me personally. Something I can call ‘mine’. And… I have semperfimomma …and I love my site and writing here and as I write this I have a little surge of excitement because now I can concentrate my focus here. Yes, I know my readership here isn’t huge, but I’ve never cared about popularity as much as I do about loyalty. (and YOU, my lovely readers, are fabulous and I’m so appreciative of you)
Blogging, though, doesn’t bring an income for me and I don’t get crazy over the sidebar ads and paid posts, and honestly every PR agency and brand likes to treat bloggers as media, only unlike media we don’t get paid hourly no matter what is published or not published… or they like to pay bloggers in products and, last I checked, free products don’t pay the bills. *sigh* ok I’m getting off on an entirely different tangent here.
So, I’m still going to write. There’s no doubt on that. I guess I just need to figure out what my focus is going to be.
Where do I go from here… you know… thoughts….
I’m more than just a military wife and have been trying to steer my writing (here on semperfimomma) away from that niche, not entirely but not exclusively anymore either, because I’m not always going to be in the military community exclusively and need to find my own personal strengths outside of that. That’s why I love the direction I’ve tried to take here in, ‘staying faithful to me as a woman/person, not just a USMC wife and mommy’.
But what are they?
Ok, seriously I’m done rambling. But there it is. That’s my brain today and where I’m at.
Thanks again to all those who read my column and supported me. It means, meant, more than I can express.