Behind the Blog: Heather of Life Love and the Pursuit of Play

I love meeting new bloggers and today I’m happy to introduce to you a really “new” blogger whom I just met.  Heather van Mil from Life Love and the Pursuit of Play started blogging just last year.  Read on to find out how she got started and what she loves about blogging.

TKM: When and why did you start blogging?

Heather: Life Love and the Pursuit of Play is just a baby—only 5 months old—and was borne out of a collision of my personal and professional writing. I had been privately writing an online journal since 2012 as a way to capture the memories of my daughter’s life that at 2.5 was already rushing by so quickly. For years before that, I had been doing guest posts and article writing as part of my job with Gymboree. One day I thought, why not do this for myself too!

TKM: How did you come up with “Life Love and the Pursuit of Play” for your blog name?

Heather: It took a long time to come up with a unique blog name—there are a lot of blogs out there! I knew I wanted it to have “play” in the title as both my personal and professional life revolve around that. At the same time, I didn’t want it to be so limiting as I knew that wouldn’t be the only topic, and who knew where things would go in the future. I like plays on words and phrases so after much playing around, Life, Love and the Pursuit of Play was born. Some have argued that it’s not the best title for a Canadian blogger, but I like it!

TKM: Do you have a blog schedule or do you post when you feel like it?

Heather: I have not yet gotten organized to set up a schedule (it’s on my mile-long to-do list). I try and post every other day. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s my target, especially while I’m so new and generating a following.

TKM: What is your favourite part of blogging? Your least favourite part?

Heather: My favourite part of blogging by far is the community. It is so cathartic not only to write about various experiences—especially the difficult ones—but to then have people respond with their own similar stories and outcomes is amazing. I don’t know if I have a least favourite part. Maybe not having as much time to devote to it as I’d like, does that count?

TKM: What advice would you offer to other bloggers?

Heather: I’m not sure if I’m in a position to offer useful advice to bloggers from a blogging point of view. From a reader’s point of view, good form and editing are so important! You can have the best content, but if it looks like a text message with no paragraphs, little punctuation and full of short forms or spelling errors, I won’t be reading on. Maybe that’s just me!

TKM: What’s your favourite social media channel and why?

Heather: Hmm, that’s a toughie. If you judge solely by amount of time spent then it’s no contest, I am a Facebooker at heart. It might just be familiarity but I find Facebook the most personal. I use Twitter and LinkedIn mostly for business. I’m wordy, I can’t help myself, and 140 characters is very limiting! I’m very new to the Google+ and Pinterest scene, so the jury is still out on those and I haven’t even touched YouTube yet. I have absolutely no desire to record myself saying or doing anything!