My original blog (creativelyaccounting.com) started as a place for me to hone some of my creative writing, nothing more. Something like, “yeah, it’d be great if people actually read this” went through my head from time to time, but my goal was just to have a place for me to hit snooze on my left-brained accounting thinking for a bit.

Then it turned into a tax blog, which is a bit like finding out that snooze button had broken off the alarm clock after an especially miserable morning.


That site has grown, even leading to a book that real people are buying. Not a whole lot, mind you, but more than the zero I was expecting.

Now the question that I’ve asked myself time and again is if I really want to try to do something with my writing. My driver was a piece of fiction that I really wanted published, but since I typically laughed at amateur artistic types during my budding high school days, I didn’t have the years of passion and experience so many others do. Eventually I gave up on that particular dream (or at least indefinitely put it on hold), but I keep writing without any real end game.

Accounting is a secure job that pays well, and I even enjoy it from time to time without becoming a bland blob like Barney Varmn (and no, I do not think Ben’s jokes are good. If you do like those accounting puns, I’ve got you covered). But there’s really no reason I couldn’t attempt to do both.

Oh Barney, how I miss you

Here’s my problem: if I do that, I have to actively grow my writing platform. Find an audience, make online friends, ask for help, etc. I enjoy accounting. I enjoy writing. I do not enjoy marketing. If I hope to get more than a couple thousand hits a month, though, that’s what I need to do.

So here’s a reflection of my faults. I just need to decide what I’m going to do with it.

(1) Setting a Goal – Hmm. If I have no friggin’ clue what I’m trying to achieve, how am I going to achieve it? It had been to cover my hosting costs, but now that I’ve checked that box, I probably should decide what I’m doing next.

(2) Stranger Danger – Social Media is not my friend. It’s a bit ironic, considering my love for technology pushed me to sign up for Facebook while it was still a fledgling infant that cooed “I don’t even know what a quail looks like” at the bottom of every page. I’ve forced myself to use Facebook to keep in touch with some of my old friends, though it was a multi-year battle to get here. If I want to move beyond my local tribes people (both past and present), I really have to get going on Twitter. I’ve tried again and again, yet each time it ends up in a flaming heap of dung.

To delve a little deeper into my psyche than I probably should, what I have a hard time doing is reaching out to people I don’t know. I have no problem with people I don’t know reaching out to me, yet vice versa feels like kicking down someone’s door without a warrant. Or probable cause. Or a police badge, for that matter.

(3) Fear of Offense – Again and again, I’ve read that if you really want to draw people in, you should take a decisive and potentially controversial stand on something. While I have a post or two that wades into that territory, I’m not about to turn into the next Matt Walsh. That’s because I’d rather dance around an issue than dig the Offense Knife into their gut.

Again, it’s a bit dumb. People all over the internet are wrong all the time. They’ll take offense at the most asinine things. It doesn’t stop me from getting a bit nervous when I see a comment when I’ve said something definitive, trembling that feelings might be hurt.

(4) And My Central Theme Is. . . – If I was smart, I’d stick with taxes. Paint myself as a guru so when someone has a tax question, they’ll think, “hey, I should see if Tim Gordon has an opinion on that.” Makes sense. I have a tax blog, I have a CPA, I have experience, and I can write about it with at least enough personality that it doesn’t sound like it’s been dredged up from a compilation of the most drool-stained words of a First Year Law Textbook.

The problem is that it’s hard to temporary lobotomize the soul crushing tax center of your brain, like my original purpose of writing, if your creative efforts are centered around tax.

I don’t want to get rid of my tax blog. I want to keep it, along with some dabbling into politics, fiction, even a memoir. There’s really no inherent reason I can’t do them all, it just means I either need to do a lot more work to sell me, or I’ll end up hitting the wrong audience quite a bit.

(5) Subscriptions – I HATE getting signed up on e-mail subscriptions. Yet, apparently, not everyone does. I’m supposed to subject people to the bitter pill of yet another mass e-mail if I want to get people on board.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m not a huge fan of that option.

Give Up or Go On

I’ve considered on multiple occasions throwing in the keyboard (keeping the ten key, of course) and giving up. I haven’t yet, slowly slides back over into the “I’m just doing this for myself” region, with maybe a burst or two of desire to go full throttle on my efforts.

For now, I’m going to try a little harder, at least a bit. Actually attempt Twitter for a few days. Maybe pick one or two more things to get the ball rolling.

I’ll be sure to post about what a complete failure it’s been in a couple weeks. Stay tuned.