People and Blogs: Annie Mueller

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

Hi, I’m Annie. I’m a middle-aged cis woman from the U.S., a writer, a single mom of four teenagers (ages 13, 15, 17, and 18 currently). I grew up in Mississippi, but other than several years living in Puerto Rico, I’ve spent most of my life in St. Louis, Missouri, which is where I live now.

I worked as a freelance writer for about 20 years, starting straight out of college. I got an English degree but found rather quickly that no one wanted to pay me to write poetry or provide literary criticism. So I branched out into learning whatever topics had potential to be lucrative. This worked out well for me because I love exploring new subjects. As my Dad describes us both, we’re "about a mile wide and an inch deep." I’ve covered a wide range of things but ended up specializing in finance and tech. For me, a real sweet spot is clarifying and explaining somewhat complex topics, like tax law or digital security, for a more general readership.

For many years, freelance writing was something I did at the edges of my life. When the kids were little I used to wake up at 4am so I could write a draft, then nurse a baby, then write a little more, then spend the day keeping a herd of tiny humans alive. I’d write a little more during nap time and after their bedtime. I homeschooled for several years, too. I look back now and have absolutely no idea how I kept up or what I was thinking. I didn’t get enough sleep for at least a decade.

In 2021 I started working full-time for Teamup Calendar. They’d been a client for years, so it was an easy transition. And it was time. I lost about half my clients in 2020 due to the pandemic. And while I liked working on different projects, it’s a lot to keep up with. I’m enjoying work that goes deeper now, focused on one team, one product, one role. As the designated ‘content’ person in a small company, a typical day might include writing product news, editing site copy, making mockups, updating documentation, helping with customer support, and putting together tutorials. I get to work from home, my hours are flexible, I like our product and I absolutely love the people I get to work with. So I feel really grateful for where I’ve landed with work.

I’m an avid reader of fiction (mostly science fiction and fantasy), poetry, and whatever nonfiction topics strike my interest. I’ve been enjoying memoirs a lot lately. I love blogging, all things indie web, and getting confused about CSS. I have a small circle of close friends whom I regularly spend time with; otherwise, I’m usually hanging out with my kids and/or being blissfully cozy at home. I stay physically active by dancing, mostly in my kitchen, and hiking and trying to run without dying and I’ve recently taken up weight lifting which I enjoy way more than I thought I would. I’m not very crafty but I’m learning how to crochet because I need a hobby that doesn’t involve staring at words. It involves more math than I expected. I might try collage next; I like the idea of ripping things up and then pasting them together.

What's the story behind your blog?

I started blogging during my college years, on Xanga. I was hooked. I’ve been keeping a diary or journal of some sort since I was about 10, and blogging was such a natural extension of that. Then I got interested in having more control and options. But I’m no coder. I tried a few different options and ended up with a self-hosted Wordpress site. I went through a few different domain names too but have been at my current domain for about 10 years now.

Wordpress was good for a long time, and I had fun playing with themes and doing minor customizations. But it became too unwieldy for me. The process of sharing a simple blog post felt kind of complex and clunky. I’d wanted to move away from Wordpress for a while but hadn’t figured out where when I came across Pika. I moved there last September and I’m absolutely delighted. It’s just a delightful blogging experience.

I also have a micro.blog site, which I really enjoy. It’s where I put photos and stuff like quotes and links and little notes and what I’m reading. For me, it works well to have the "big blog" separate from the "micro blog." They’re two different states of mind, or categories, for me. Micro.blog is for little stuff I want to keep or note or track or share. Logging, which might include a bit of writing but might not. Pika is for writing posts. Blogging, which might include or link back to something I’ve logged, but might not. It’s an arbitrary distinction, but it works well for me.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Writing is how I process life, really. I write about my feelings all the time. I write about stuff that I notice, what confuses me or delights me, my questions, experiences, fears, hopes. I write a lot of the same stuff over and over.

Blogging is a really special mode of writing. It can be as mundane and specific and personal as what I write in my journal, but I’m sharing it. I’m letting others in, inviting people to know and participate in these small experiences I’m having. They’re doing me a favor by taking a few moments to read what I post and I’m always kind of shocked and quite honored. Amazing! So many things people could be doing. If they take a minute to read something I write, what a gift that is for me. It’s really cool. Blogging gives us a way to find these little points of connection and have interactions and conversations and develop relationships with people we might otherwise miss.

As far as my writing process, it’s pretty simple. I think of something, I want to blog about it, I open up my blog dashboard and start writing. Or I’m writing a note in Obsidian, decide to make it a blog post, and copy it over to my blog. I don’t think too hard about it. I usually proofread it, but not always. It’s just a blog.

That’s the process about 75% of the time. Zero friction. The Pika editor is delightful to use.

The other 25% of the time, I might realize I’m writing something that needs more thought and time, or research, or I just need to sit with it for a bit. Those drafts live in Obsidian. When I’m ready to post one, I copy it to my blog.

For microblogging, I use MarsEdit on my laptop or the official Micro.blog app on my phone.

I don’t really have a plan about what I’m going to blog about, but ideas aren’t ever an issue. I journal daily, I take notes all the time, I make lists incessantly. And I’m continually inspired by what other people share and blog about.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I mean, sure. My ideal creative environment is the library from Beauty and the Beast. I’d also love it if someone could bring me snacks and keep me supplied with coffee, tea, and sparkling water. Maybe a nice Cabernet in the evening. I like to have an array of beverages.

I don’t know if physical space influences our creativity, precisely. But I do believe that our environment influences whether we feel safe, and how much energy we have, and how easy it is to focus. And those are factors in how creative we can be. It’s not that creativity is a dial that gets turned up and down by our physical environment; it’s more that we are creative beings, inherently, always—and when we feel safe and have energy and aren’t too stressed about other stuff, that creativity can come out more easily and more generously. However, I’ve also found in my own life that creativity benefits from constraints. Sometimes working with a small amount of time hunched over a laptop or scribbling frantically in a cheap notebook is the key that unlocks a door.

I think more than our physical environment, our internal environment is key to healthy creativity: Do I believe I’m a creative being, or not? Do I believe that what I have to share is worth sharing, or not? Do I think about myself as someone whose work is valuable? Do I honor my own boundaries? Do I respect my intuition? Do I feel that my voice is worthwhile? Am I invested enough in my own creative expression that I’ll risk embarrassment? Am I confident enough to make mistakes publicly, and know that I’ll recover?

If I cultivate positive beliefs about who I am as a creative being, and back those beliefs up with action, I build an internal environment that stays with me no matter what physical space I’m in.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

My domain is registered with Hostinger. My blog is hosted by Pika, which is also my blogging platform.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I wouldn’t get so precious with it.

When I first started blogging, it was simple and fun. Along the way, I started feeling like I needed to have important things to say, be more professional, have all these polished bits and pieces, publish on a schedule, blah blah blah. Ridiculous. It sucked the joy right out of blogging. So I just wouldn’t waste any time worrying about weird corporate standards applied to my personal blog. I’d stick to doing what I do now: say what you want to say , don’t take it too seriously, have fun, let your weird flag fly so you can find other interesting people. Be part of the beating bloody heart of the Internet. Be messy, be alive, and tell us about it. Share the stuff you’re doing and making and thinking about and trying out. Don’t censor yourself so much. Blog a dozen times a day or once a month or whenever you feel like it. Try things. Change your theme, change your platform, do whatever. Mess it all up and start fresh. (Related: I’d also be better about backing up allllll those blog posts before trying things and messing it all up.)

Blogging is just one person saying, "Hey, here’s me." I know sometimes it can feel like you’re screaming into the void but honestly, even that can be therapeutic. Because at least you’re the one screaming, you’re making a sound, you’re putting something out there. There is a lot more power in that than we realize. I guess that’s the other thing I’d do differently: I wouldn’t ever worry about who’s reading or not reading my blog. All expression craves an audience: that’s beautiful and natural and normal and good. We want connection, not a vacuum. But when we focus on the audience, it’s so easy to lose our own voice and perspective. We start tuning ourselves unconsciously to please this audience. Then we’re not creating, we’re performing. And we lose something really essential, the joy of creating for its own sake. And we get resentful, because we’ve traded something essential, something that’s in our control—the process of creating and sharing—for something non-essential and out of our control. Because other people’s attention and approval is always out of our control. No one owes me their attention, and certainly no one owes me their approval. But I owe myself the time and space and energy to do what makes me feel most alive, and to contribute something positive, however tiny, to this reality.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I pay $15/year for my domain name. It’s $6/month for Pika and $100/year for Micro.blog Premium. I don’t have any revenue. Sometimes I get emails from people wanting to sell stuff on my blog and it’s always the dumbest, most unrelated stuff. Anyway I hate ads so I’m not gonna do that. I did start setting up Ko-fi at one point.

If people can monetise, I think that’s great. I love the one-a-month concept and club. I like supporting other bloggers, but I don’t have a lot of extra money so that’s a cool way to contribute without breaking the budget. Tiny things add up.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

• Patrick Rhone
• Tracy Durnell (_read the P&B interview_)
• Baldur Bjarnason
• Loura
• Keenan
• Lou Plummer
• Alexandra Wolfe
• Véronique (_read the P&B interview_)
• Nicholas Bate
• Courtney

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

I love my guestbook, please sign it so we can be friends. :)