Category: Learn

My journey to creating my microbusiness began in 2009, before I’d ever heard the term. I wanted to share one of my super powers with the world: I can see the next draft of a story or essay before it is written (pretty cool, eh? That’s what graduate school does for a person!), and I started Open Road Writing.

I was kind of half-hearted about the whole thing. If work came my way, I was delighted. I did some public relations, but I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on the business. When school let out in May, I’d get gung-ho about the business, and when I returned to campus in September, the business was on its own. I was frustrated. I felt like a failure.

And then in 2012, I made the best decision I could have for my microbusiness: I joined Courtney Carver’s Goodblog Project. I’m a fan of, well, everything Courtney does. She’s smart, generous, savvy, and no-nonsense. She taught me to be more fluid in how I approach my business, how to connect with people. How to be myself, not who I thought I had to be, to do business. And she taught me to let go of what I don’t love doing. How to let go of Open Road Writing and embrace my crafting and writing as a whole, here. How to write e-courses, offer consulting, write patterns, lead writing workshops and crochet classes and have it all unified. When I do work for PoMoGolightly, I’m doing my best, favorite work. Who doesn’t want that feeling?

The Goodblog Project no longer runs. But Courtney is now offering a micro-course that I love and want to share with you. Create a Microbusiness* is filled with pragmatic information about running a microbusiness, as well as encouragement to believe in yourself and to connect with people. Courtney infused the course with her values and urges you to do the same with your business. Her way of thinking and acting, simply put, feels good.

Create a Microbusiness includes pdfs, videos, sound tracks, and audio…AND Courtney’s holding a live Q&A webinar on Tuesday, August 27. The course is self-paced. I know I’ll be working through the materials more than once. So if you are thinking of starting a microbusiness or want ideas to help you run your microbusiness more meaningfully, I hope you’ll take a look at Create a Microbusiness.

I have to ask, dear reader: do you run a microbusiness? Do you want to? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

*I am an affiliate for this course. I admire Courtney’s work tremendously and believe in the usefulness of this course.

I’m really excited to share my first e-course with you– You Have Time: a course to help you live your best 168 hours. I developed this course from an assignment I use with my writing students, adding journaling prompts and inspirational quotes. The course is designed to help you identify your time killers and to find bits of time that hide like so many coins under a sofa cushion. This isn’t necessarily a super fun course. In fact, it may be a little irritating and uncomfortable. But I have seen it work in my students’ lives and in my own life to help find the time to accomplish projects and goals.

If you have a goal you’ve been wishing you had time to work toward, I hope you’ll sign up for the e-course. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask in the comments, on Twitter, or by email.