I’m not sure if many of you know this, but Dragonflight Dreams is actually the 3rd blog I own (and the @DragonflightGal account is my 3rd twitter account, correspondingly). I have a LOT of different interests in life, and they don’t always blend or overlap neatly. Nor are the prospective audiences for each the same. This has led to a kind of division regarding where I talk about what. Here’s the breakdown:
My Professional Site & Professional Twitter: This is where I run my freelance graphic design business from. Granted, it is by far the most neglected of the blogs, but then again the people coming to the site aren’t looking to read a fun blog, they’re looking for a good graphic designer. That means my portfolio, and I keep that updated. It is very much business-focused, rather than me-focused. That’s not to say the professional look and feel isn’t ‘me’ per se, because I think it is, but this is not the place where I share any really personal information (age, marital status, relationship stuff, daily life stuff, girly stuff, Instagram photos, etc.). My professional twitter account follows suit; I will talk about what I’m working on, various design or web issues, pass along design-y/art-y/freelance-y articles, but again don’t really delve into anything personal. The people I follow on their are other designers and programmers, for the most part. Overall, there is a very clear division between my professional life and my personal life. My clients are just that – business clients. Not friends I’m going to go grab a drink or catch a movie with. Part of this is because 99% of my clients are significantly older than me and we simply don’t have that much in common, and part is my desire to avoid any type of over-sharing that would drive potential business away. I freelance full-time; this is what I live on. I can’t afford to scare off someone who may turn out to be an excellent client. And yes, someone can be an excellent client without me wanting to spend free time with them, just as I can be (and am!) friendly to my clients without being friends.
My Bookworm/Writer Site & Bookworm/Writer Twitter: My first true love in life is books (don’t tell Ian! haha). Stories and how they’re told, other worlds and people taking life from the pages. To that end, I started Myths & Memoirs back in 2007 as a place to focus on book reviews, sharing my own writing, and general word-related stuff. Fun tidbit: the Dragonflight dragon actually used to live over at this blog, but I co-opted it when I started Dragonflight and then redesigned Myths. This blog has had some ups and downs, as far as how frequently I update it. It’s subject to the whims of my life, in that if I don’t have a lot of free time for reading, there obviously won’t be many book review posts. My corresponding twitter feed is full of writers and authors, literary agents, editors, and publishing companies. There’s lots of wit and snark, geeky articles, and literary puns. And I love all of it. But again, it’s not the same kind of crowd that you’ll find browsing Etsy, going to craft shows or reading What I Wore posts (for the most part; there’s probably a bit of overlap). They’re the crowd that goes to writers groups (I’m in one), book signings, and conventions of the sci-fi/fantasy persuasion.
Dragonflight Site & Dragonflight twitter: Where you are now! This is, by far, both my most active blog and my most personal. This is my ‘for fun’ blog where I can just be myself and talk about things I love, share pretty things, etc. Basically just a chronicle of my life with no real agenda. While there is a shop attached to the name as well, I’m not really worried about over-sharing driving potential customers away, because in this corner of the blogosphere people tend to connect with the person before the product. Also, I’m not depending on Dragonflight for income, so there’s no pressure to ‘make it work’; I can just let it be whatever I feel like it being. And it’s been so great to connect with other crafty people through Twitter!
Now, this all makes sense to me, to have separate places for these different niche interests. But I’ve realized this isn’t exactly normal, and in fact one of my good friends teases me occasionally about not being able to keep up with me on Twitter because I have a bajillion of them. So I guess I’m just wondering lately if I’m overthinking how I have my web homes setup, or what. I’m not unhappy with how things are divided, though trying to keep up with that many blogs and twitters can be a lot of work sometimes. And I definitely want to keep a clear distinction between my personal and professional lives at present. I don’t know. I guess I’m just chewing over it. Excuse the rambling. 🙂 But hey, that’s what Thought for Thursday is about, right?
How about it, readers? Any take on the issue? Do you separate out different aspects of your life like this?
