For episode two of The Palmer Files, guest (and friend) Kristin Maier joins me to talk about blogging, which for both Kristin and myself predates our podcasting careers.
She’s also a Mommy blogger, which is a completely different subculture of blogging that I’m not that familiar with and this conversation presented an opportunity to tell a little of my blogging origin story.
Throughout the conversation we cover:
- Digital Origins
- Starting a Blog
- The Writing Process
- Creating Content
- Reading
- Storytelling
- Editing
- Organization
- Relevance
- The bigger picture
- Podcasting vs. Blogging
- And reasons to blog.
Through the conversation, I state the three reasons to create something (which is more general and applicable to other things than just blogging) as to inform, to education, and to entertain.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
How Was Your Week, Honey Podcast
Agent Palmer’s First Post “Football over Rhodes Scholarship… What Wold you do?
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Recapping My Year-Long Content Experiment.
You can also hear more Palmer in the meantime on Our Liner Notes, a musical conversation podcast with host Chris Maier and my new gig as co-host of The Podcast Digest with Dan Lizette.
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:02:00 – 00:00:48:01
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com a book review of Polaroids from the Dead by Douglas Copeland, which reflects on an early 90s worldview that seems time expired. And this podcast actually launched. This is The Palmer Files episode two with guest Kristin Maier, where we talk about blogging, writing, work life balance, and things might get organized and color coded. Let’s do the show.
00:00:48:06 – 00:01:07:24
Agent Palmer
Hello there, and welcome back. This is the Palmer Files, and I’m still your host, Jason Stershic, also known online as Agent Palmer. And this is still my podcast. Before we get into this week’s guest introduction and conversation, let me say that these first three episodes were set up to allow those of you who don’t know me at all to get to know me a little bit.
00:01:07:29 – 00:01:28:50
Agent Palmer
And for those of you who do, to get to know me a little bit better. The first episode was about decision making. You have to decide to start a blog or a podcast. The second episode is about blogging, which for Kristin and myself, predates our podcasting careers by a considerable amount of time. And for the third, I’ll actually talk about podcasting.
00:01:28:55 – 00:01:59:22
Agent Palmer
But this is about blogging. And my first post was on November 17th, 2011. I had to look up to date, but I remember the topic. It was about quarterback Patrick Witt deciding to play in a rivalry game for his, you know, college, that he went to Yale against Harvard instead of going to his road scholarship interview? It was an odd story for sure, but it was one that I felt strongly enough about to tap away at the keyboard and uses the first post on Agent palmer.com.
00:01:59:27 – 00:02:33:50
Agent Palmer
Through the last almost eight years, my writing has changed and I’ve aged as well, but I still wonder what I would have done in that situation. Occasionally would I do as Witt did and play with my teammates? Or would I go for the scholarship interview? Anyway, enough about my first post and what ifs. Why? Kristin Maier, she’s a friend, a podcaster, and before she was either of those, she was and continues to be a blogger who consistently puts out content at a pace as regular as clockwork most of the time, which we get into.
00:02:33:55 – 00:02:55:23
Agent Palmer
She’s also a mommy blogger, which is a completely different subculture of blogging that I’m not that familiar with. What’s interesting is that while I do read her blog and off mic, we do talk. We don’t usually talk about writing or blogging. So this was not only a chance for you to get to know her, but for me to dive deeper into one of the things we have in common.
00:02:55:28 – 00:03:13:53
Agent Palmer
And this conversation also presented an opportunity to tell a little bit of my blogging origin story. Again, to those of you just tuning in who have never read my blog, it’s a win all around because you get to know me. You get to hear us discuss blogging and you get to know my friend and fellow blogger Kristin Maier.
00:03:13:57 – 00:03:38:06
Agent Palmer
Lastly, before we get into it, you can follow Kristin at KMaeMaier. That’s the letter KMaeMaier. You can see her blog at Honey Bears and Sidney beans.blogspot.com. There are links to those in the show notes for you and you can hear her on. How was your week, honey? With her husband, Chris? Wherever you happen to be listening to this right now.
00:03:38:10 – 00:03:59:04
Agent Palmer
As always, tweet along with the show at the Palmer Files. Tweet me at Agent Palmer or email the show The Palmer files@gmail.com. So without further ado, here we go.
00:03:59:09 – 00:04:04:39
Agent Palmer
Kristin. Why blogging? Like there’s tons of platforms. Why blogging?
00:04:04:44 – 00:04:35:17
Kristin Maier
Well, when I started blogging, there wasn’t a ton of platforms. Or at least I didn’t know of them. When I started thinking about doing a blog, Facebook was just coming out. So it was mostly a way that I could keep in contact with my friends and family, as I had just had a baby, and I wanted to make sure that people could follow our life.
00:04:35:21 – 00:04:36:09
Kristin Maier
Does that make sense?
00:04:36:14 – 00:04:44:32
Agent Palmer
It does. Did you know that there was a mommy blogger culture that already existed?
00:04:44:37 – 00:05:11:38
Kristin Maier
No, I had no idea. I didn’t read many blogs. I had just started to because I wanted to know what I should be putting into my body. And, I started being really more involved in online. Flat out. I had never had any sort of online existence at all. I played Minecraft. That’s what my computer did.
00:05:11:43 – 00:05:14:10
Agent Palmer
I mean, no, no, no.
00:05:14:12 – 00:05:17:00
Kristin Maier
It’s that minesweeper. Minesweeper.
00:05:17:04 – 00:05:20:01
Agent Palmer
So, no, no, I am.
00:05:20:06 – 00:05:21:26
Kristin Maier
What is that?
00:05:21:31 – 00:05:23:51
Agent Palmer
AOL Instant Messenger.
00:05:23:56 – 00:05:25:23
Kristin Maier
What is that?
00:05:25:28 – 00:05:32:56
Agent Palmer
Okay. All right. I mean, it was text messaging before text, but it’s Facebook Messenger. Before Facebook Messenger.
00:05:33:01 – 00:05:37:02
Kristin Maier
Oh my gosh. I didn’t even get my first smartphone until, like, two years ago.
00:05:37:04 – 00:05:41:29
Agent Palmer
No, no, I am was like in the 90s.
00:05:41:34 – 00:05:57:33
Kristin Maier
Yeah. Okay. Again, I had no we had a computer and it took dial up or whatever. So and this was when I was just graduating high school. So I’m old.
00:05:57:37 – 00:05:58:24
Agent Palmer
No, I get that.
00:05:58:24 – 00:06:05:13
Kristin Maier
But I was never into computers. I didn’t know how they worked. I definitely didn’t go online for anything.
00:06:05:18 – 00:06:09:30
Agent Palmer
All right. But so. So you want to keep in touch with your family?
00:06:09:35 – 00:06:29:53
Kristin Maier
My sister moved to Korea when I. And I was pregnant with my my first child. And that’s how we started communicating is through Facebook. And so I was like, oh. And then she had like kind of a blog. It was a web page, like a website. And she would post all of her pictures so that we could see what she was doing.
00:06:29:58 – 00:06:54:11
Kristin Maier
And I was like, I could do this, and I could write as well, because I’ve always wanted to write. I love books, I love writing, I love reading. So I was like this, I could do this, and it would just be to contact my sister. And then I thought, well, I moved to Penticton and I was like, well, I can contact all the people in Winnipeg with just one post.
00:06:54:16 – 00:06:59:48
Kristin Maier
I should just do this all the time and then I don’t have to talk to anybody anymore.
00:06:59:52 – 00:07:04:55
Agent Palmer
But you do still talk to people. This wasn’t a complete replacement.
00:07:05:00 – 00:07:22:11
Kristin Maier
Not really. I don’t have no need to. They can read about our life every single week. And so I, I talked to people as and I messaged ask how their life is going, but I don’t need to talk to them about my life because how redundant.
00:07:22:16 – 00:07:32:20
Agent Palmer
So why y weekly I mean you decide to start it. It y weekly as opposed to, you know, twice monthly or monthly even.
00:07:32:25 – 00:07:37:42
Kristin Maier
Again, I didn’t even look at it like a blog. I did it sometimes five times a week.
00:07:37:47 – 00:07:40:44
Agent Palmer
Whenever there was something to update the family on.
00:07:40:49 – 00:08:02:37
Kristin Maier
Whenever I had something to say. I didn’t even let people know it was there. I never gave the website information out to my sister or anybody. I just wrote for myself and posted all my pictures. And after a couple months of doing that, my mum was like, what are you always doing on the computer there? And so I kind of told her, but I didn’t, and she was so excited.
00:08:02:41 – 00:08:18:13
Kristin Maier
It’s like you have to tell your sister, you have to tell everybody. So I kind of just gave it up to carry my sister and my mom, and then they would read it and sometimes my sister would pass it along, but it was really nothing. It was just my life.
00:08:18:18 – 00:08:40:29
Agent Palmer
And then, so where where do the recipes come in? Where does the. Because you are for in the modern sense, a mommy blogger in like you do talk about your life, but you also share recipes and you also have opinions on like child rearing and stuff. Like you really fit the bill. So where do the recipes come in?
00:08:40:29 – 00:08:46:11
Agent Palmer
Where does something more than just this is what’s going on in my life?
00:08:46:16 – 00:09:10:46
Kristin Maier
Well, well, we were living in Winnipeg and I was pregnant with my oldest. She changed my life before she even came out. I had never cooked like, ever. And Chris and I were servers, so we always had food. Like, we always had good food from restaurants. Why did we have to cook? And we didn’t eat at normal times or anything like that?
00:09:10:50 – 00:09:36:57
Kristin Maier
And growing up, we always ate as a family at a certain time. No matter what we were doing, we made time to eat together. So that was something really important to Chris and I. So we started cooking and making dinners, and I started chopping vegetables and stuff like that. And it was interesting. And I liked it, I loved it, I fucking love cooking and I love food, but I didn’t know that.
00:09:37:02 – 00:10:05:43
Kristin Maier
So I started doing and we started living cleaner. I started using oils and nuts and like stuff like that, right? Like everything started change. I used cloth diapers for Christ’s sake. Right. So I started putting out stuff that interest me like cleaning supplies or organizational charts, or food that I was making, or I made everything from scratch.
00:10:05:43 – 00:10:12:57
Kristin Maier
All the sauces, those to make it. I love making sauces. That’s my favorite thing.
00:10:13:02 – 00:10:30:29
Kristin Maier
So then I just started putting it out there, and it kind of evolved to something that I was like, I can’t do this every day. I can’t post what we’re eating every single day. This is freaking ridiculous, right? So I didn’t and I just started going to one week once a week.
00:10:30:34 – 00:10:49:28
Agent Palmer
So you, you and I have very similar origin stories in that I wanted to write. Obviously mine’s a geek blog. It’s not a mommy blog at all. In fact, there’s probably a lot of the hundreds of posts I’ve written. I think I might be approaching a thousand at some point, but whatever.
00:10:49:36 – 00:10:52:31
Kristin Maier
Hundred? Wow.
00:10:52:35 – 00:11:18:16
Agent Palmer
I think only maybe like 5% are personal. Like, I did this. A lot of them are I read this or I watch this, but there’s not a lot of experience in there. It’s just it wasn’t part of what I had started. And but when I started, it, I wasn’t weekly. I was whenever I, I don’t know, whenever I felt like whenever the mood strikes, you know, like that’s what it was.
00:11:18:16 – 00:11:42:07
Agent Palmer
And, I, I had a real full time job, like my first big 9 to 5 had happened before I started the blog. So it was like, all right, well, I’m coming home from, you know, I’m working 40 hours a week, sometimes 50, and I don’t have the energy as much. And it was still new and I didn’t know what it was.
00:11:42:11 – 00:12:11:25
Agent Palmer
And I feel like in the early days I took it for granted. It was like, oh, this is an outlet. It is what it is. And while I do have a brand and I’m proud of the brand, early on I had no idea what I was doing. Agent Palmer as a name. I got lucky that it kind of still fits who I am and what I do, and then I, I bought a house and stopped blogging for like four months.
00:12:11:30 – 00:12:30:22
Agent Palmer
Like that. Really? That was the the moment I bought a house, I stopped because. So the short of it was I, let’s say I worked in the middle and to the far east of my to the far east of where I worked was my the house I bought to the far west of where I worked was where my apartment was.
00:12:30:26 – 00:12:54:47
Agent Palmer
So I would drive from the west to the middle to go to work. After work, I would drive further east to my house and paint it or sand stuff or spackle stuff, and then at like 11 or 12:00 at night, I drive all the way back to my apartment, past where I work, and started all over again. So for like three months, prepping the house to move in, that’s what I did.
00:12:54:52 – 00:12:55:10
Kristin Maier
Totally.
00:12:55:10 – 00:13:21:02
Agent Palmer
Understand. So I move and I unpack because it’s not like you move in like one day you’re magically all good. And it was probably like a month later that I was like, all right, I think I want to blog again. And that’s when I forced myself because when I, when I commit, I over commit. So I wasn’t like, I’m going to get back and write once a week.
00:13:21:07 – 00:13:35:45
Agent Palmer
I’m going to get back and write twice a week. So for starting in November of whatever that year was through to the end of the following October, I did at least a post every Monday and Thursday.
00:13:35:50 – 00:13:37:04
Kristin Maier
Wow. That’s commitment.
00:13:37:18 – 00:14:02:18
Agent Palmer
And that’s when I learned strike while the iron hot. That’s when I learned, you know, and not being like you and doing the experience based. I can have a good weekend where I write five posts and get myself ahead of ahead of schedule. And after that, and I look back, I didn’t write 104 posts during that year. Rolling year.
00:14:02:18 – 00:14:29:27
Agent Palmer
I wrote like 130 posts. I still did more than two a week and I came out of it. I went, all right, I’m going to back it down to once a week. And I still didn’t. I think I did over like almost 90 the next year and I kind of tried to back it down. And now I’m trying hard to like bring it back to once a week because it accomplished a few things.
00:14:29:38 – 00:14:48:21
Agent Palmer
I got better at writing. That’s one of the reasons I started it in the first place. Like, I want to write, and once you do that and you get and you write on a regular basis, it’s it’s not like riding a bike. You don’t automatically get better at it the more you do it. But with writing, you do.
00:14:48:25 – 00:15:22:50
Agent Palmer
You know, there comes a point in all writers where you feel like you hit the wall, but you can go through it like it’s possible to keep going when you’re exercising or riding a bike or running like there really is, like, oh, you cannot go any faster. It doesn’t exist in writing. It’s all in your head. And I feel like I got to a point where as long as I have an outline, I can get my message across and I can do that and on a regular basis, and then I want to dial it back so I can do something like this podcast.
00:15:22:55 – 00:15:43:30
Agent Palmer
I want to dial it back so I can do other things and other projects, because if I’m just going to write twice, three times a week, that’s all I’m ever going to do. I may have other things and events and things, but like as far as projects, that’s all I’m ever going to do. But and this is the reason you are here.
00:15:43:30 – 00:15:55:07
Agent Palmer
You are one of the few people within my circle that has a regular blog, and you, probably more than anyone else I know, have a busier life than me. Like.
00:15:55:12 – 00:15:56:45
Kristin Maier
Oh, it’s all relative, right?
00:15:56:45 – 00:15:57:43
Agent Palmer
Well, I mean.
00:15:57:48 – 00:16:00:28
Kristin Maier
You probably do things that I don’t do and I do things that you don’t do.
00:16:00:37 – 00:16:20:29
Agent Palmer
Well, what I was going to say was, I have, a work I have a very small life. And then I have the blog and the and the Agent Palmer stuff with all the podcasting. And you have work life, mom and a second job. I’m a mom. And then the blog.
00:16:20:29 – 00:16:23:29
Kristin Maier
And mommy is my first job, actually.
00:16:23:40 – 00:16:36:16
Agent Palmer
Okay. But it’s it’s but it’s. You still have another job on top of that. Like, how do you, I’m guessing your secrets just like mine. We don’t sleep like. But how do you balance everything?
00:16:36:21 – 00:16:59:09
Kristin Maier
Well, I do sleep. I have to get seven hours or I would be a single parent, and that would not be a good thing, because that’s the first thing is that I have a super awesome partner, right? Like, Chris, my co-host from. How is your weekly. And my awesome husband is like the best team player ever. He’s not one of those dads that just look after the kids.
00:16:59:09 – 00:17:26:35
Kristin Maier
Like if I say, hey, will you look after the kids? He actually like, looks after the kids and makes a schedule with me and says, what time do I need to pick up the children and stuff like that? So we have a really good balance. So I’m able to do lots of things on a regular day, but blogging is, it’s kind of like my guilty pleasure, right?
00:17:26:35 – 00:17:53:53
Kristin Maier
Like, I got into a fight with my dad a couple weeks ago about the stuff that he was not doing around the house because we all live together. We all work together. So there’s a lot of things that we have to work around and be kind about and there’s only so much that I can take. So we had a discussion about everybody’s need to do something around the house, because I do have a lot on my plate.
00:17:53:58 – 00:18:36:01
Kristin Maier
And my dad said to me, well, in the evenings, all you do is blog. So you could be doing so much more like my laundry. And I feel guilt because it does take up time. And sometimes when I’m trying to, like, get pictures in there, it has been crazy busy and that it takes up time spent with not usually my kids because it’s usually done after 9:00 at night, but I’m tired and that’s time when usually Chris and I can hang out so it’s kind of sucky.
00:18:36:01 – 00:18:47:03
Kristin Maier
It’s like my guilty pleasure because it’s something I do for myself, and I’m the only one that benefits. And I’m not used to doing that because I only usually do stuff that benefits my family.
00:18:47:03 – 00:19:13:15
Agent Palmer
Well hold on. So I want to ask though, does it really only benefit you? I mean, you have a couples podcast where you talk about your family with your husband. You have a blog, which is basically an archive of everything that your family’s had since before your first kid was born. You don’t think that’s going to. I mean, I’m sure there’s embarrassing stories in there, too, but that’s not going to be some comedy.
00:19:13:20 – 00:19:26:26
Agent Palmer
But that’s not going to be something that maybe they can look at. And your blog as well as listening to the show, I mean, you know what? What you get to leave that behind like they always I agree with you.
00:19:26:31 – 00:20:02:22
Kristin Maier
And that’s been a huge pushing point for me. Because a lot changed after my mom passed away. I took some time off then, I think my last post was like in May, and she passed away in June, and I didn’t do another post until the fall of that year. And that’s when it was started to change for me, where I was like, trying to leave something behind because I didn’t have any more stories for my mom.
00:20:02:27 – 00:20:17:43
Kristin Maier
And so that was a huge thing for me and still is. And that’s why I really document everything now. So weekly, so on time. So making sure that I don’t leave anything out.
00:20:17:48 – 00:20:36:30
Agent Palmer
What was your let’s go back like you said you wanted to write, what was your before the blog? You know, is it just school projects? Did you do any books? I don’t it social writing. That’s not. Did you did you do any, like, just, you know, writing as a hobby?
00:20:36:35 – 00:21:02:02
Kristin Maier
Well, I was the editor of our newspaper, so, like, I did editorials and stuff like that, but that was more in elementary and junior high, actually, in high school, I kind of didn’t do any academics, so I dropped out of everything. But I had no problem writing newsletters and leaving it in the cafeteria. If something was pissing me off.
00:21:02:07 – 00:21:34:58
Kristin Maier
So I still wrote, I was in AP English and my teacher was big on writing and big on reading, and I loved it. And she actually introduced me to, Reader’s theater and stream of consciousness writing. And that’s what I love. That’s the books I love. That’s what I like reading. That’s why I like writing. I feel like you have to be an expert to to write about something, especially in a blog.
00:21:34:58 – 00:22:02:58
Kristin Maier
If you’re, like, putting stuff out there, it’s shouldn’t just be an opinion. It should be something that you know quite well. And so you’re not misleading people. I try not to ever put something that I’m doing out there. I don’t talk about politics generally. I don’t talk about vaccinations or anything like that. Right. Like I don’t talk about things that are going to try to change people’s minds because I’m not an expert.
00:22:02:58 – 00:22:11:25
Kristin Maier
But the one thing I know the most is parenting. So I feel like I can discuss that with some kind of background.
00:22:11:30 – 00:22:39:19
Agent Palmer
Except that I think as a parent you would have some expertise in, say, vaccinations. You would have some expertise in some of the political spectrum. I mean, these things by default as kids and even now, as just an adult, I still go to my parents for stuff. So, like, if you still have that expertise, yes.
00:22:39:19 – 00:23:08:09
Kristin Maier
But I try to keep it about what every parent can do, despite what you think or your views or your religion or anything like that, that we can all kind of read it and be like, that’s just a mom that loves her family and is trying the best, right? Like, that’s from that point of view, like I don’t that’s, I don’t know, stream of consciousness allows me to do that because I can just talk as myself.
00:23:08:14 – 00:23:15:11
Kristin Maier
I would love to write a book in my head. It’s already written. I’m just too goddamn lazy to to write all the sentences.
00:23:15:11 – 00:23:52:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah, except that you do write. I mean, you’ve been your blogs years old. Yep. Your books out there. It’s on the internet, like I it’s I did. So going back to that year of content quote unquote, where it was two posts. I mean, at the end of it, I did a, a post about it, which I’ll link in the show notes, but in that post and I don’t remember offhand what it is, it was like all of these posts equaled X amount of words, which put me like, I don’t know, like it was almost as many words as Lord of the rings.
00:23:52:14 – 00:24:14:07
Agent Palmer
Like you’re already doing that kind of writing. It’s just a matter of it goes back to that balance. Like, what would you have to give up? Like, would you be willing to give up the blog for a year to write your book? Or would you, I don’t know, one less hour with Chris for a year. I mean, a, you know, a week with Chris.
00:24:14:12 – 00:24:15:33
Agent Palmer
So like, there’s.
00:24:15:33 – 00:24:32:18
Kristin Maier
Writing a book could be different. That would be like working like if you were actually going to sit and write a book, you would need to do that for hours a day, especially if you were going to write a book that needs any kind of reference. Sources, background information.
00:24:32:19 – 00:24:36:40
Agent Palmer
No, that’s just planning. I don’t think you would need anything more than what you do for your blog.
00:24:36:40 – 00:24:42:12
Kristin Maier
Now that would take years though, to write like a novel.
00:24:42:17 – 00:24:47:28
Agent Palmer
No it wouldn’t. It flows. Yeah, especially if you kept it stream of conscience like, because.
00:24:47:33 – 00:25:10:35
Kristin Maier
I thought it would be different. Yes. You write a stream of consciousness book would be different. That would be easy. That would be, like you said, every page of my blog being printed out, that would just be a book right there. If you were going to look at a parent life, I guess. I mean, like if I write, I want to write a historical romance.
00:25:10:40 – 00:25:15:18
Agent Palmer
Okay. Well, that’s I mean, that was going to be my follow up is what do you want to write? And that’s what.
00:25:15:18 – 00:25:18:33
Kristin Maier
I write romance novels.
00:25:18:38 – 00:25:21:43
Agent Palmer
And this is what you already have in your head. You’re already good.
00:25:21:45 – 00:25:23:28
Kristin Maier
Yes, absolutely.
00:25:23:33 – 00:25:51:14
Agent Palmer
All right. Well, so but that brings me to storytelling because I believe that whether it’s the written word or in audio form of podcasting, no matter what, it’s all storytelling. It doesn’t matter if it’s how I felt about this movie or what I did this week. It’s all storytelling. So for storytelling, you have the ability to write, but telling a story is different.
00:25:51:14 – 00:26:01:59
Agent Palmer
It’s not just putting words together and putting words on a page. So were you a good storyteller before, like, or is it an inherent in your family?
00:26:02:04 – 00:26:28:46
Kristin Maier
No, I and I, I like to write. I like writing essays, like I love essays. I could write essays all day long, like, you give me the topic and I will write you a freaking awesome essay because all it is, is an argument, right? Yep. And I like to argue so essays are my ideal whether or not I can tell a story.
00:26:28:51 – 00:26:56:05
Kristin Maier
Probably not. I took a lot of writing classes, and workshops. I got chosen for a lot of different workshops. So, I was lucky enough to meet some pretty cool writers and I’m not descriptive. I’m a get to the point kind of person, so it’s very difficult for me to be long and drawn out about a setting.
00:26:56:09 – 00:26:58:59
Kristin Maier
I think I’d be better at writing a movie.
00:26:59:04 – 00:27:11:04
Agent Palmer
But who’s to say that your book needs all that? Who’s to say your book can’t be? Kristin did this, Kristin did that. Like, you don’t need that. It was, you know, at dusk and you.
00:27:11:05 – 00:27:13:09
Kristin Maier
Do it in a romance novel.
00:27:13:23 – 00:27:16:09
Agent Palmer
All right. Well, I mean, that’s that’s fair.
00:27:16:09 – 00:27:35:47
Kristin Maier
That’s what I read. Right? Well, those are the one. Those again, guilty pastime. I don’t have a lot of time to read anymore. And I try to read a good book and then a smut book, and then a good book. Then a small book. But it’s hard. I only have like 45 minutes in between dance classes to read.
00:27:35:52 – 00:27:39:10
Kristin Maier
I end up rereading the same page over and over and over again.
00:27:39:15 – 00:27:45:14
Agent Palmer
What do you consider good books like what’s what’s on that side of the reading spectrum?
00:27:45:18 – 00:28:06:32
Kristin Maier
Well, the last book I read was becoming from, Michelle Obama. It was awesome. That’s a good book. And then I read my book. I right now I’m in the middle of homegrown, which is, a story about two sisters that started this, where the first of the slaves in the slave trade in the 1700s from Ghana.
00:28:06:37 – 00:28:26:20
Kristin Maier
That’s a good book I like to read. Even, you know, I’ll even put Dan Brown into the good book because it’s not a romance. It’s okay. Like, romance novels are just fluff. They’re like, I can read for them in two hours. And I know because on the flight I read four of them.
00:28:26:35 – 00:28:37:42
Agent Palmer
Like, so do you think that all of the reading and I’m not discounting the romance novels, but all of that reading has to inform your writing in some respect.
00:28:37:47 – 00:28:58:16
Kristin Maier
I yes, I think so. I haven’t actually wrote in a long time besides my blog, but that takes a long like that takes a lot out of me. Like this week I didn’t put out a post and that’s not like me, but I find I had don’t have anything to say and I don’t want to just put something out there for the sake of putting something out there.
00:28:58:21 – 00:29:20:19
Kristin Maier
I like to be able to write a story, you know, like that’s it. My blog kind of goes, I write something, then I have my recipe and then my pictures for the family, because strangers or people that are coming to look for recipes, they don’t care about what’s at the bottom. I know I’m one of those people I.
00:29:20:32 – 00:29:23:41
Kristin Maier
I frequent a lot of blogs so.
00:29:23:45 – 00:29:52:40
Agent Palmer
And so we’re we’re now in the, you know, we’re well beyond the birth of Facebook. We have Twitter, we have Facebook, we have Facebook Messenger and Pinterest and like Snapchat, like we have so many social medias. So why maintain the blog? Why not, you know, move it somewhere else or move it to Facebook. It’s not like you’re not on Facebook.
00:29:52:44 – 00:29:55:12
Kristin Maier
I hate Facebook.
00:29:55:17 – 00:30:00:16
Agent Palmer
I that’s fine. I don’t all all fairness, I don’t like Facebook either.
00:30:00:21 – 00:30:24:11
Kristin Maier
I use Facebook a lot because I have a ton of elderly family and stuff like that, that that’s the only way that I can keep in touch with them. And they love seeing the kids grow up. So that’s pretty much the only reason why I’m on there. I do like social media. I like it a lot, actually.
00:30:24:16 – 00:30:54:09
Kristin Maier
I like the fact that there is an outlet out there that allows insignificant people like myself to have a voice, and that’s what I feel like my blog is I. Can I talk about my darkest fears on there when I need to hash something out? That’s what I do. I write it all out. I get rid of at least eight paragraphs and then post it.
00:30:54:14 – 00:31:06:29
Agent Palmer
What’s the can you can you can you tell us what’s in the eight paragraphs you get rid of? Like is that is that names like you’re just getting rid of names like left and right. So people and changing names to protect the guilty and stuff.
00:31:06:33 – 00:31:33:07
Kristin Maier
Sometimes I rarely bitch on my blog. I try not to use it as a a place of putting negative out there. I try to look at everything through a funny lens or through, shit, man, this is this is motherhood. You know, there ain’t no hood like motherhood.
00:31:33:12 – 00:31:40:35
Kristin Maier
Yeah. So I that’s the way I kind of look at it. I don’t try to like, complain. That’s what I have a podcast for.
00:31:40:40 – 00:32:02:18
Agent Palmer
Well and see what’s funny is it became a conscious effort for me at some point, and I have no idea when. And I don’t know why. I have one negative review on my entire site and it was because I hate read. I started this book. You can find it on my site, but I’m not going to tell anybody.
00:32:02:18 – 00:32:22:40
Agent Palmer
Like, but I ended up like I got through the first chapter and then I hate read the rest of the book, like, just like, I don’t like this. I don’t like this, I don’t like this. And I didn’t like it so much. I wrote like a horrible review and I put it up and normally if I don’t like something, I just.
00:32:22:44 – 00:32:35:23
Agent Palmer
I don’t write about it. I this one like show got me. But for the most part, I’m projecting things I enjoy out into the world. Right? I’m not projecting the negativity.
00:32:35:34 – 00:33:03:42
Kristin Maier
I think it’s different. Because you are reviewing and I have read your reviews and they are very kind and you are a kind person, right? But if I want to read a book, I want to know the bad stuff too. And so if I’m looking for a book and I read reviews to see if, especially if I’m going to buy a book, oh, so if I read a review and it’s a bad review, that at least lets me know kind of what I’m in for.
00:33:03:42 – 00:33:08:55
Kristin Maier
So I think that that would be, a positive way of putting a negative review out there.
00:33:08:57 – 00:33:14:00
Agent Palmer
But would you still read the book like you would read a negative review and still read the book?
00:33:14:05 – 00:33:19:56
Kristin Maier
No, but you’re trying to tell people not to read the book. You might save me $22 a by the book.
00:33:20:01 – 00:33:52:47
Agent Palmer
All right. That’s fair. I mean, I, I will say I’m extremely selective before I get in. Like, it may seem ridiculous. I have so many positive reviews and that one negative, but I really take my time before and I don’t. It’s not really a process. It’s more of a feeling than anything else. But like. And it’s the same with movies if I don’t have the slightest interest in it, if I’m not going to finish it as an example, I’m not going to start it.
00:33:52:52 – 00:34:10:18
Agent Palmer
Or if I don’t think it’s going to grab me enough. So a lot of the positive and glowing reviews are because I’m basically staying in my lane now. I have a lot of lanes like, you know, look at any ten posts and they’re going to be all over the place.
00:34:10:31 – 00:34:14:19
Kristin Maier
But but they’re all things that interests you and that, you know, you’re going to like the books.
00:34:14:21 – 00:34:15:35
Agent Palmer
Exactly.
00:34:15:40 – 00:34:35:45
Kristin Maier
So I have a strict policy of you always have to finish what you start. So that’s probably why we don’t watch a lot of movies, because the majority of them suck. But I cannot turn it off. It would bother me to know that I wouldn’t sleep for days. I even if I hated the fucking movie. Oh, sorry.
00:34:35:45 – 00:34:47:37
Kristin Maier
I don’t know if the swearing, even if I hated the movie, I would still finish it because it would kill me to not know how it ends. So I would write bad reviews.
00:34:47:42 – 00:34:54:41
Agent Palmer
So why not skip to the end? Why? Like, is it is that a possibility for you? Like, no.
00:34:54:41 – 00:34:55:36
Kristin Maier
I even.
00:34:55:41 – 00:35:02:38
Agent Palmer
Skip to the last you’re on the DVD. You can skip to the last chapter right before the thing. You find out how it ends and just move on.
00:35:02:43 – 00:35:14:03
Kristin Maier
No, I hate spoilers. I hate knowing anything going in. I know like that would be like watching the end score of a hockey game just to see if it’s a shitty game to watch.
00:35:14:10 – 00:35:18:11
Agent Palmer
Like, I mean, you know, all right.
00:35:18:11 – 00:35:21:20
Kristin Maier
But but I would never do that, by the way. No.
00:35:21:20 – 00:35:28:36
Agent Palmer
But you but if you can’t watch the game, you still check out the score.
00:35:28:40 – 00:35:33:13
Agent Palmer
You’re not avoiding the score just because you didn’t watch the game.
00:35:33:17 – 00:35:39:27
Kristin Maier
Depends on what game. Because I can be pretty bitter.
00:35:39:31 – 00:35:54:18
Agent Palmer
All right. That’s I mean, so social media, the blog, these are public forums for the most part, yes. Is there a reason you didn’t I mean, there’s ways to put it in a private blog. And why would.
00:35:54:18 – 00:35:56:00
Kristin Maier
I do that for privacy?
00:35:56:13 – 00:36:18:52
Agent Palmer
No, I’m I’m being honest. Like, no. Oh, you know, anybody can read your stuff. It’s not just your fame. It’s not just limited to your family. So is there I, I don’t want to use the word voyeur because I feel like it has the wrong connotation. But like, do you enjoy the fact that, like, a stranger could come on your blog and comment like, is that is that a plus for you?
00:36:18:54 – 00:36:22:22
Agent Palmer
Is it irrelevant for you?
00:36:22:26 – 00:36:59:24
Kristin Maier
Well, I found that blogs and mummy blogs I guess, really helped me see different sides of parenting. I’m new to this every freaking day. I’m new to it, right? Like you’re you. Just when you think you understand what you’re doing, it all changes. So if I didn’t have a place where I could go and read other people’s experiences, I don’t know if I would love being a mom as much as I do.
00:36:59:29 – 00:37:02:44
Kristin Maier
Because I like to be prepared for things.
00:37:02:49 – 00:37:06:18
Agent Palmer
That’s fair. And you’re preparing other people as well?
00:37:06:23 – 00:37:39:32
Kristin Maier
Yes. So we have a, I guess I don’t even know what it’s what it is, actually, it’s called yummy Mummy Club. And Eric M started it like over a decade ago, I think. And it’s a site she used to be like at MTV, like a DJ, but much music, I should say. She was super hot in the 80s and 90s, and now she runs this parenting site and she has like, recipes and mummy bloggers and, fashion and all this different stuff out of Toronto.
00:37:39:37 – 00:37:59:19
Kristin Maier
And they were looking for new bloggers one year. So I put in my application, it was super long and all this, and they chose me as one of their bloggers. So now my they post my blog all the time like every time I put one out. So. But you have to say that you’re going to be a regular blogger and you have to kind of do that.
00:37:59:24 – 00:38:29:40
Kristin Maier
So I have been very careful at always maintaining a schedule and a format of what I do, something that might help another mum that’s on the verge of losing her cool, and a recipe that is fast and nutritious that she can feed her family just like I could because I did. And this is it. And my pictures aren’t good and it’s just a normal.
00:38:29:45 – 00:38:50:53
Kristin Maier
I didn’t stage this and put it under super fancy lights and just make it pretty. I actually cooked it and I ate that plate. So I think that those are the blogs I like and can relate to. So that’s kind of what I do. So now it’s a bit more than just putting it out for my family, because I do like putting it out there for whoever.
00:38:50:58 – 00:39:07:38
Agent Palmer
You have a weekly blog that’s mainly based on what you’ve eaten and what you’ve done that week. Yes. So what’s the schedule like? Is it just I’m going to write not only what’s the schedule like, but what’s the process like? A lot of things can happen in a week. So I.
00:39:07:38 – 00:39:08:11
Kristin Maier
Know.
00:39:08:16 – 00:39:14:36
Agent Palmer
How do you determine, you know, what goes into a blog or you know, well.
00:39:14:41 – 00:39:36:32
Kristin Maier
It depends on what’s happening in the world. It depends on what I want to say. Like last week, I got into a fight with an old lady at the gas station. I could put that in there, but in a different perspective on how times have changed or how, you know, I live in a retirement community and write about something I feel about that.
00:39:36:37 – 00:39:59:38
Kristin Maier
So that’s what I kind of do. Maybe not so much a specific thing that happened, but the theme or how it made me feel. So like last post was about Winnipeg. I didn’t talk about Winnipeg. I talked about what it felt like going home again. Because that’s what I was feeling. So it all depends on what I have to say.
00:39:59:38 – 00:40:04:35
Kristin Maier
That week. That’s how I decide on what’s going at the beginning.
00:40:04:40 – 00:40:10:13
Agent Palmer
And the recipe. I mean, you cook obviously more than one meal.
00:40:10:18 – 00:40:38:09
Kristin Maier
I have a ton of drafts. Just the recipes, with pictures and recipes. There’s so many there that some of them are irrelevant, I think because, like, does anybody eat kale anymore? I don’t know, you know, like, so I do my recipes for the week. I if I, if I haven’t, if I’m using a new recipe or if it’s something that I’ve used a lot and finally take pictures of, that’s great.
00:40:38:09 – 00:41:04:35
Kristin Maier
But usually it’s only one new item a week and the other stuff is kind of, again, still, I cook every night, so and I try not to make instant stuff, because that’s what we like to eat. That’s what we’re lucky enough to live in a place that has amazing fruits and vegetables. We buy a cow and a pig from local ranches.
00:41:04:40 – 00:41:14:30
Kristin Maier
Our meat is delicious. You know, like, I feel like I’m super lucky. So we get to eat well every night. Unless it’s really busy. And then I make them all eat McDonald’s.
00:41:14:35 – 00:41:30:25
Agent Palmer
Your schedule is so vastly different than mine. And yes, it. My schedule is planned out for at least 4 to 6 months in advance.
00:41:30:30 – 00:41:36:57
Kristin Maier
I have the kids, dentist and I doctor’s appointments 4 to 6 months in advance. That’s about it.
00:41:37:02 – 00:42:20:58
Agent Palmer
And, it none of it’s set in stone, you know, it’s like, all right, I’m going to try and review this movie. I’m going to try and write about this topic. I’m going to try and review this book and if I get there and I don’t, then I put something else in. If I, you know, if I just I happen to read a few extra books, I move things around and I have a, I, I, I ended up with trial and error, mind you, but like a legit schedule where it’s color coded between what’s drafted, what’s ready to go, what’s scheduled and what’s already been posted, and I’ve shown it to people who are totally
00:42:21:07 – 00:42:44:51
Agent Palmer
intimidated by, I don’t know if it’s the organization or if I’m if it’s if I make the mistake of like, showing people like, well, you want to see it, here’s my calendar. And they go like you did seven posts in February. I don’t know what it, you know, but or something like that where it’s like you have a weekly blog that’s not oh no, I just, you know, I had a few extra that month, whatever.
00:42:44:51 – 00:43:04:06
Agent Palmer
Like, and I don’t know if I should have like a template that’s not my schedule. That’s just like example schedule to show people, but they always seem intimidated by it or just all the different colors. And the way I have it laid out, just people don’t like.
00:43:04:11 – 00:43:33:05
Kristin Maier
So I’m totally envious of that schedule. I love color coding. I have my entire life color coded to keep up with everybody’s schedules and their meetings and their activities and everything. So, I do in in my calendar it says blog every Tuesday and it is color coded. That’s my color. I don’t even know what color it is because I don’t have really anything that I do just for me.
00:43:33:05 – 00:44:00:38
Kristin Maier
So I don’t know. I can’t remember what color it is, but it does say blog. And I had every intention of going in there every Tuesday and writing which recipe would be next week. And what topic? And I just don’t have the time to do that. Like, and, and that’s the problem is I don’t have the time to organize that aspect of my life because I already feel guilty that it takes up so much time.
00:44:00:43 – 00:44:30:41
Agent Palmer
All right. But I guess the question is so, I learned to schedule ahead because of that year of doing two posts a week, because the hardest part is the hardest part about doing a blog is I have a post due tomorrow. Shit, what am I going to write about? And if you already know what you’re going to write about tomorrow, it’s a lot easier to sit down today and start like that was just how it worked.
00:44:30:46 – 00:44:31:37
Kristin Maier
I agree.
00:44:31:42 – 00:44:41:18
Agent Palmer
Do you think you’d save yourself a little bit of time? You know what I mean? Like putting in the recipes ahead of time or knowing what they’re going to be. Does that save you any time?
00:44:41:23 – 00:45:05:47
Kristin Maier
Yes, and that’s why I have the recipes, like on drafts, because sometimes I use recipes that I haven’t made in six months. And just having it there ready to go is saves me so much time. However, because it’s a weekly blog and it’s my voice, I’m talking in first person, I feel like it needs to be relevant.
00:45:05:52 – 00:45:18:26
Kristin Maier
It needs to. If I’m talking about mass shootings, it can’t just come out. When you know that day that there isn’t a mass shooting like, do you know, I mean.
00:45:18:31 – 00:45:26:39
Agent Palmer
So you’re trying to not only help parents in general, you’re helping parents with some current events to.
00:45:26:43 – 00:46:01:42
Kristin Maier
Well, I can’t talk about my feelings of the kids attending school in August because it’s irrelevant. Parents wanted to hear about that. They wanted to feel that they were with me two months ago. So it’s hard to talk about something like that later. So especially because the kids kids are changing all the time. So if I don’t catch it, then it’s not something I can put off for three weeks because, I want a whole different freaking thing that’s happening that is mind blowing.
00:46:01:42 – 00:46:24:45
Kristin Maier
So I don’t even know. Like, I skipped a section. It feels. So I kind of have to stay relevant in that first part and then putting all the pictures in, because I have to edit them all and then and then put them in and I’m really bad with computers. So I, you know, I have to put everything in and then change the font and all the font goes back to left side.
00:46:24:45 – 00:46:28:30
Kristin Maier
I wanted centered, oh my gosh. Like it just takes me forever to do that stuff.
00:46:28:35 – 00:46:34:15
Agent Palmer
Well I you’ve been doing this for so long. Like it must have gotten easier at this point.
00:46:34:20 – 00:47:03:48
Kristin Maier
I yes, I swear way less at my computer now. Way less. But it’s still feels like it should be that there’s an easy way to do it. I feel like I am missing something that maybe my browser or whatever my host is like ancient or something. So I’m in the process of changing over so that hopefully it will be more user friendly than what I feel I’ve been doing for the last.
00:47:03:48 – 00:47:09:27
Kristin Maier
You know, I don’t know how many years, seven years, eight years, nine years. Oh really?
00:47:09:31 – 00:47:16:35
Agent Palmer
So let me talk about what most people would consider the hardest part of blogging. The actual writing.
00:47:16:39 – 00:47:18:39
Kristin Maier
Oh, that’s not the hard part.
00:47:18:43 – 00:47:28:52
Agent Palmer
I mean, I’ve struggled with I’ve got a blank page. I know what I’m going to write. I just like writer’s block. Completely gone. Like, do you ever have that issue at all?
00:47:28:57 – 00:47:59:18
Kristin Maier
Yes. Like I said, like this week, I don’t really have anything to say. It’s all pretty. I’ve said it before, you know, nothing is really made me go. I need to write about this, which is very unusual. It doesn’t happen that often. But I find that when I’m really, really, really busy and summers here are really busy and I don’t get into bed till 11:00 at night, or 1:00 in the morning, and then I have to be up and start my day the next day.
00:47:59:31 – 00:48:10:29
Kristin Maier
I’m not really. I’m on autopilot. I’m not really thinking about how the world around me is affecting me, or the bigger picture, or some sort of insight on it.
00:48:10:34 – 00:48:30:36
Agent Palmer
Is there a part of you that feels like it would be easier to be insular and just write about your family, just write about, you know, things that your kids do instead of looking, stepping back and seeing the bigger picture and taking current events into it.
00:48:30:41 – 00:48:55:47
Kristin Maier
Absolutely. When my kids were younger, it was so much easier because I had so many stories. But now they’re older. They don’t. I’m not with them as much. They do their own things in the evening. I am their chauffeur. I take them everywhere, but I’m not one on one with them. And that because they are getting older, I feel like some things are their own story to tell.
00:48:55:51 – 00:49:22:50
Kristin Maier
It’s not my story anymore. I could tell stories about what happened at dad’s to my child, but that’s her story. I try to focus on how it affects me because there’s privacy things with with the kids. Now, when they were younger, I was their voice, but now they have their own. And I find it’s a lot harder to tell stories about my kids without.
00:49:22:55 – 00:49:26:12
Kristin Maier
Checking to see if I’m crossing a line.
00:49:26:17 – 00:49:30:11
Agent Palmer
Do you talk to them about storytelling?
00:49:30:16 – 00:49:49:27
Kristin Maier
Oh, absolutely. I am pretty child friendly in my blog, so I know Rowan has definitely my oldest. She has definitely read my blog before and read parts of it. I have no problem when I write something about her, I show it to her to make sure it’s okay, especially at this age. And she she loves to read.
00:49:49:27 – 00:49:52:58
Kristin Maier
She is a big reader, so she likes reading my stories.
00:49:53:02 – 00:49:57:34
Agent Palmer
Do you encourage them? Like, are they going to be writers or are they going to be storytellers?
00:49:57:39 – 00:50:22:43
Kristin Maier
Well, currently my oldest is sitting in the office writing a newspaper that she has been delivering to everybody in the house, and she charges me a dollar. I don’t get this, but everybody, it comes under my door in the morning and it’s something that has happened in the house. And, she stopped using color printer, because I freaked out.
00:50:22:48 – 00:50:25:41
Agent Palmer
Is it a is it a daily? A weekly?
00:50:25:46 – 00:50:32:17
Kristin Maier
She does not have a timeline. She just. We have to pay weekly, though.
00:50:32:22 – 00:50:53:38
Kristin Maier
But she, she’s gotten out to so far. And when we got back from Winnipeg, she had a sign up sheet, where we all had to sign up for our newspaper and then my youngest was like, well, that’s not fair because she, my oldest is saving up their school is going, to Quebec on a field trip, and her dance studio goes to New York for a dance, workshop.
00:50:53:49 – 00:51:09:36
Kristin Maier
So she has to save up for those two trips coming up. So she feels that asking us for money in a different way is easier. I don’t know, like it’s still coming out of my pocket. That was not the deal here.
00:51:09:40 – 00:51:12:16
Kristin Maier
I’ll talk about that on my blog.
00:51:12:20 – 00:51:28:45
Agent Palmer
They’re going to probably embrace the internet more than we did at a much earlier age. So if your oldest comes to you tomorrow and goes, I want to start a blog.
00:51:28:49 – 00:51:56:15
Kristin Maier
Yes, do it like it’s like a journal I journaled my entire life. This is how I journal now. I talk about my mom a lot. This is really helped me with my mum’s passing. It’s been my therapy and I think that if the girls want to an outlet like that to help them be a more balanced person, then I’m totally down with it.
00:51:56:20 – 00:52:18:09
Kristin Maier
My youngest is lazy as hell. She’s super smart. There’s no way that she she tries to take the easy way out of everything. So I know that a writing is is hard. You have to make full sentences, not just letters. You have to. You make real words. Words are hard. So she wants a YouTube. Like that’s her thing.
00:52:18:09 – 00:52:32:55
Kristin Maier
She cannot wait to get a YouTube channel. My oldest, I believe, would like something like blogging. Like I said, she loves to write. She loves to read. But I don’t know that again, you have to sit down and focus.
00:52:32:59 – 00:52:48:42
Agent Palmer
Well, I want to talk about journaling for a second. I, I attempted as a kid from like, I don’t know, seven through whatever, 15 to journal. And I could never get past like three days.
00:52:48:47 – 00:52:53:08
Kristin Maier
Never had a really happy life.
00:52:53:13 – 00:53:06:32
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, there’s a joke. I tell my parents, like, I’m never going to be a good writer because I lived. I grew up in a good home. I’m I’m never going to be able to be like a poet. Like, too much. Not enough bad stuff’s ever happened to me.
00:53:06:37 – 00:53:13:47
Kristin Maier
But it’s kind of true. People only journal when they have when they’re upset or need to work through their feelings. Nobody has time when they’re happy.
00:53:14:01 – 00:53:36:07
Agent Palmer
Well, it’s funny because I was not working through my feelings and I wasn’t sad, but the one time I did successfully journal was when I was abroad for a semester, and I every day, like I still have the journals and I look at them and go like, so I, I used literally just composition notebooks. It ended up being like three of them.
00:53:36:12 – 00:54:00:52
Agent Palmer
And it’s amazing that first of all, my writing, my handwriting is atrocious. So like going back and reading them, it’s just like, if this wasn’t me, like, if somebody else had to read through this, it would make no sense. But there was a lot of things going on. I was like 15, 16, and it was the only time in my life outside of blogging where I was writing on a regular basis.
00:54:00:57 – 00:54:04:20
Agent Palmer
But did you journal on a regular basis?
00:54:04:35 – 00:54:27:20
Kristin Maier
Yes, I’ve always been, I love to write. I have always written it down. That’s how I work through things, even when I’m, like, angry at somebody, I write their name down and then I tear it up. That’s like release, like, I, I make lists, I love pencils. I have pencils everywhere. And they have to be sharp.
00:54:27:25 – 00:54:49:46
Kristin Maier
And I love fresh journals and fresh notebooks, and I love white pages. I just want to use letters all the time. Like I have books beside my bed, just in case I want to. I think of something. I find that I use my phone more often now, the notes and that, but I still like to write things down.
00:54:49:46 – 00:55:06:05
Kristin Maier
And when I am like working out our schedule, not I write it down. And when it comes to Christmas on okay, we have this much stuff to do, I make an actual calendar and write it down with my pencil in color coded so that I can see what we’re up against.
00:55:06:10 – 00:55:11:41
Agent Palmer
Like, so you like writing and you’re good writer?
00:55:11:46 – 00:55:13:07
Kristin Maier
I didn’t I never said that.
00:55:13:20 – 00:55:15:57
Agent Palmer
Right. Like, I’m I’m going to say that.
00:55:16:02 – 00:55:16:54
Kristin Maier
But.
00:55:16:59 – 00:55:46:08
Agent Palmer
You’re now a podcaster. There is a vast difference between having the control over writing something and being able to edit it and change it after the fact, versus a podcast where what you say out of your mouth, where we can totally restate something and reword it and we can totally edit it so it sounds good or sounds better, but it’s not as easy.
00:55:46:12 – 00:55:48:00
Kristin Maier
No, it’s no it’s not.
00:55:48:15 – 00:55:59:35
Agent Palmer
How has it changed the way you you you tell stories? Has it changed anything as far as when you’re talking at least and has it had any impact on your writing at all?
00:55:59:40 – 00:56:19:23
Kristin Maier
Absolutely. Because the things I used to talk about in my blog, I now talk about in the podcast, and I try not to repeat stories, I try not to talk about the same thing. So finding content for the blog has been more difficult because I’ve I’m telling the story on the podcast.
00:56:19:23 – 00:56:30:36
Agent Palmer
Well, it’s it’s funny because you’re scooping yourself because you’re recording on the weekend and releasing on Tuesday, and then Tuesday comes and you go to write. You’re scooping yourself basically.
00:56:30:41 – 00:56:52:03
Kristin Maier
Basically, I did try to get them out on the same day where the podcast and the blog would come out on the same day, but I also like to, put a link to the podcast in my blog. So sometimes Chris doesn’t get it out on time and I’m all ready to go. Sorry hun, I threw you under the bus, but it just wasn’t working.
00:56:52:03 – 00:57:15:27
Kristin Maier
It was. And then like late at night, I was trying to add links. Not. I was like, you know what? So now I try to get at on Wednesday, but that’s screwed up with my promotion because I, I know that I don’t look at mum blogs or recipe blogs on the weekend, so I really don’t want to post anything on the weekend for that, because mums are busy, like that’s that’s not what they want to be doing.
00:57:15:36 – 00:57:37:52
Kristin Maier
So it’s I like it to come out at the beginning of the week rather than the middle of the week, because that’s when I make my menu. That’s when I do my shopping plan, and I have written actual blog posts about how you can save money, how you can budget for a full week of eating and eating nutritional, but you have to do it at the beginning of the week.
00:57:37:52 – 00:57:44:12
Kristin Maier
So getting my recipe in the middle of the week really doesn’t help that unless it’s planning for the next week.
00:57:44:17 – 00:57:53:49
Agent Palmer
The blog and the podcast kind of go hand in hand a little bit. Then. Yeah, but they’re separate enough. Or are they?
00:57:53:56 – 00:58:20:11
Kristin Maier
Oh no, they’re separate. Although everything that we talk about in the podcast is what I talk about in the blog, just the blog is family rated. All my family members, my uncles and aunts read it. My great uncles and aunts read it. I try to keep it general as an PG general. The podcast isn’t. It’s explicit.
00:58:20:11 – 00:58:43:43
Kristin Maier
It’s an adult talking to an adult. So it may be the same stories, but from a different perspective, because I wear two capes, you know, like. Sure. And I love that. I love that about the podcast is that I didn’t have that outlet before. Even when I blogged. Yes, it’s 100% me, but it was always, again, I don’t talk politics.
00:58:43:43 – 00:58:55:43
Kristin Maier
I don’t talk about my opinion as much as trying to help all mums. Yeah, podcast. But I don’t do that.
00:58:55:48 – 00:59:12:30
Agent Palmer
If you could and I understand it’s it’s a unique scenario because you’re spending time with your husband, but if you could pick one platform to stick with, like you had to choose.
00:59:12:35 – 00:59:17:45
Kristin Maier
That’s a hard one because I love podcasting.
00:59:17:49 – 00:59:46:00
Kristin Maier
But the blog keeps all of my pictures. It keeps all my memories. It’s my journal. I can literally go back through my blog and tell you what I was doing on any day for the last, like half a decade. Like that’s crazy. So I don’t know if I could give that up because especially on times when, you know, Chris are like, no, that didn’t happen.
00:59:46:00 – 00:59:52:14
Kristin Maier
Oh yeah, it sure did. It’s evidence.
00:59:52:19 – 00:59:57:43
Agent Palmer
I want to play devil’s advocate here. Everybody keeps saying blogging is dead.
00:59:57:48 – 01:00:03:48
Kristin Maier
I have not heard that before, but I don’t know any bloggers. So.
01:00:03:53 – 01:00:18:55
Agent Palmer
Well, it’s not bloggers who are saying it. Bloggers are usually the ones who are maintaining. It’s not. I maintain that the written word will. It was here before anything else, and it will be here long after actually.
01:00:19:00 – 01:00:27:38
Kristin Maier
But actually it was it wasn’t written word. It was oral stories that started before anything else that got written down.
01:00:27:43 – 01:00:40:25
Agent Palmer
I know, okay. But I’m, I’m saying from a digital perspective, the written word was first. That’s what it was. It was before pictures. Yeah. And I don’t see it going anywhere. You read.
01:00:40:25 – 01:00:40:56
Kristin Maier
Blogs, I.
01:00:40:56 – 01:00:50:17
Agent Palmer
Do, I read blogs, it is it is it just the sheer fact that we write blogs? That is why we read them or.
01:00:50:22 – 01:01:05:20
Kristin Maier
I love reading, I love information and I especially love information from just regular people. I again, I think it’s so cool that we have a platform where I’m like an author, right? Like.
01:01:05:25 – 01:01:08:48
Agent Palmer
No, no, no, you’re not like an author. You are.
01:01:08:48 – 01:01:31:44
Kristin Maier
And right. Exactly. Yes. I just don’t get paid for it. Well, actually, I do, but that’s different. But I was published in a couple different, creative writing workshops where they would find it and put it in the library kind of thing. So I guess if you want to say that’s published, but I that didn’t mean anything to me.
01:01:31:58 – 01:02:11:28
Kristin Maier
But putting it out where you asked about like a stranger, if a stranger says, you know, like, I really like that recipe, I feel awesome. I’m just like, yes, I’m glad that you liked it. I try to do that to other blogs that I use the recipe, whatever. I like that was awesome. Thank you very much. Or when something really hits me emotionally and I can connect, I always leave a comment and I like it when people do that as well because not because I need likes or anything like that, but because I think that it’s really cool that people have this platform to get all this stuff that’s in my head out there.
01:02:11:30 – 01:02:19:16
Kristin Maier
That’s so cool. I just love that. I really, really like that whole aspect of where our futures headed.
01:02:19:21 – 01:02:46:14
Agent Palmer
One of the things I like to point out to people when they tell me blogging is dead, is that blogging is everywhere. Blogging is literally ubiquitous. It is. Go to CNN. Guess what the most recent news post is at the top right? By definition, it’s a blog. You just don’t think of it that way. You think of it as a web site, ESPN, CBS, CNN, all of these places where the most recent thing is at the top.
01:02:46:18 – 01:02:48:45
Agent Palmer
Guess what? That by definition, is a blog.
01:02:48:46 – 01:03:06:37
Kristin Maier
Oh no, I guess so, but I, I guess I love journalism, I almost became a journalist and to me, if if it’s an accredited source, I don’t really think that’s a blog, but maybe that’s just my ignorance. But I always.
01:03:06:51 – 01:03:41:36
Agent Palmer
Know, no, no, that’s that’s not your ignorance. I’m just saying, by definition, a blog is a, reverse chronological order of posts. Basically in the simplest form. That’s why, Tumblr is a micro blogging platform. In theory, Twitter could be a micro blogging platform if they keep their feed in chronological order, which sometimes they don’t. It’s just that that’s what works for websites.
01:03:41:41 – 01:04:10:36
Agent Palmer
At the very beginning, websites weren’t like that. Only blogs were like that. Websites like CNN were kind of more like online digital magazines. So the most recent story wasn’t necessarily at the front. The biggest story was at the front. And we’ve we’ve taken a turn where now everybody wants what’s new first. So everything or not everything, but a lot of things are blogs because that first thing is the most recent.
01:04:10:36 – 01:04:16:02
Agent Palmer
It’s just nobody thinks of CNN like a blog. It’s hard journalism or.
01:04:16:07 – 01:04:16:54
Kristin Maier
It’s journalism.
01:04:16:54 – 01:04:27:05
Agent Palmer
Or whatever, but it’s journalism. And it’s not to say that’s any different. What I do is maybe less polished, but it’s not any different than Entertainment Weekly.
01:04:27:09 – 01:04:48:20
Kristin Maier
No, I agree, I mean, but that’s we are just Joe Schmo and we have this whole platform that CNN has the same platform, like we’re on even footing. Like, to me that is so cool that I can write something. And if if people didn’t like it, they could pass it around so that millions of people could see it potentially.
01:04:48:27 – 01:05:13:48
Kristin Maier
That’s crazy. But we have that opportunity. Every single person could write Harry Potter, right? Like, I don’t know. To me that’s it’s it’s just like a pipe dream. It’s out there. It could be something I don’t know. I’ve, I’ve read about other bloggers that get picked up and they get books made out of their blogs. Not. I’m just like, that’s crazy talk.
01:05:13:52 – 01:05:17:21
Kristin Maier
But that could happen. Not to me, but it could.
01:05:17:26 – 01:05:20:15
Agent Palmer
Well, hold on. It could happen to you. It could and.
01:05:20:15 – 01:05:22:49
Kristin Maier
It wouldn’t, but it could.
01:05:22:53 – 01:05:30:09
Agent Palmer
Well, let’s let’s play. Let’s play the game. Let’s play the what if game. If it happened, would it change the way you blog?
01:05:30:14 – 01:05:51:22
Kristin Maier
Yes, because I even changed my blogs, so much when I went to the Yummy Mummy Club because you had to have a certain way of doing it and that and so that would, that it obviously would change it. And I would have to go through everything. I remember, I remember a couple years ago I was like, you know what?
01:05:51:22 – 01:06:07:42
Kristin Maier
I don’t want to repeat myself and I don’t have a fabulous memory. I’m like, don’t we talk about this? Well, I don’t know, because I haven’t even really linked things. I haven’t tagged them. I have no idea what’s in every post. So I start going through things and I had forgotten stuff had happened. I was laughing my ass off.
01:06:07:42 – 01:06:24:51
Kristin Maier
Actually, like, oh my gosh, that was so funny. But it would change a lot of things. For one, if I got a book deal and I made lots of money, I would be writing from my yacht.
01:06:24:56 – 01:06:30:45
Kristin Maier
I think it’d be way easier to be creative on a big ocean of water.
01:06:30:50 – 01:06:32:46
Agent Palmer
Where’s your yacht going to be?
01:06:32:50 – 01:06:37:35
Kristin Maier
Somewhere near Europe.
01:06:37:40 – 01:06:41:58
Kristin Maier
But my home would be here. I would never leave Canada.
01:06:42:02 – 01:06:45:26
Agent Palmer
I, I don’t I don’t have a follow up.
01:06:45:31 – 01:07:01:19
Kristin Maier
And I don’t think that things like that happened to middle class girls from Canada. They don’t. And I’m again, there’s so many people that write so much greater than me.
01:07:01:24 – 01:07:02:16
Kristin Maier
I was out the other day.
01:07:02:29 – 01:07:22:50
Agent Palmer
That’s all relative. People want something down to earth. There are times when I use words, what people would call East Coast academic words where I’m like, all right, so there’s a chance some of my audience is not going to know what this word means.
01:07:22:55 – 01:07:28:44
Kristin Maier
But that’s the fun of it. That’s what you look up. I love when I don’t know a word, I hope.
01:07:28:44 – 01:07:55:32
Agent Palmer
Yes, you, I mean, I and that’s, it’s, it’s the reason that it’s that not every that all my posts aren’t like I saw a movie it good like I don’t I don’t want it to be that simplistic but and I hope that people learn I mean there’s from what I can tell, there are three reasons to blog, maybe four to inform, to entertain and to educate.
01:07:55:37 – 01:08:13:17
Agent Palmer
And what you’re doing is informing the future, basically because you can go back and as it in, in a month and tell Chris that this happened on this day. That’s information, right? That’s so inform, entertain and educate and good blogs do all three.
01:08:13:21 – 01:08:27:18
Kristin Maier
I think that I do all three. I always try to keep humor. Because those are the blogs I like. I always try to impart some kind of information and what the other one.
01:08:27:23 – 01:08:29:26
Agent Palmer
Inform, entertain and educate.
01:08:29:31 – 01:08:48:22
Kristin Maier
Educate. And that’s I try to give a recipe or a craft or an organizational tip or something that I use in my regular life. So I think that that’s kind of what I try to do with every post. I don’t know if I hit the nail on the head every time, but that’s what I try to do.
01:08:48:27 – 01:09:13:33
Agent Palmer
We all try to do a certain level. I don’t just throw. I think I’ve been guilty occasionally of like throwing a post out. Just here you go. But for the most part, we all try and do those three things, and I feel like it’s it’s not just blogging that’s media. Whether it be audio or visual or text. We’re all trying to do those three things.
01:09:13:38 – 01:09:22:26
Agent Palmer
So hey, if you’re aiming for all three and you cover at least two of the boxes, that’s a victory in my book.
01:09:22:30 – 01:09:31:32
Kristin Maier
Absolutely. Yeah. And again, if people keep on coming back, then you’re doing something right. Right.
01:09:31:37 – 01:09:32:42
Agent Palmer
Absolutely.
01:09:32:47 – 01:09:55:53
Kristin Maier
So every time, like numbers have never mattered to me. But every time I like open up and go, wow, that many people read what I had to say, that is super cool. So I don’t I feel some sort of obligation to the people that do read and that I don’t want to put out false information, or I don’t want to let them down because I’m tired, or anything like that.
01:09:55:53 – 01:10:22:41
Kristin Maier
So like this week, like I said, I did not put out one. That does not happen very often, but I’m not going to just say something for the sake of saying something if it isn’t well thought out and something that I’ve been mulling over for a while because most of my posts are like that. I usually have like six on the go, so I can add them to different things or something that I’ve been has been bothering with the whole MeToo movement.
01:10:22:46 – 01:10:46:38
Kristin Maier
I wasn’t right at the beginning. It was a bit later because I really had to formulate what I wanted to say about that. And that’s something that I would do in my blog over a podcast, because at least in the blog, I can read what I say before I put it out there. And in a podcast, like you said, there’s only so much you can edit.
01:10:46:43 – 01:11:13:47
Agent Palmer
I like the idea that it takes you a while to formulate things like, I have a schedule, I write things out and I edit them. I very rarely cover current events, and it’s because, with the exception of maybe that one thing that hits you and all of a sudden you’re inspired and you want to write and you know what you’re going to write current events isn’t necessarily that there are so many different things that can be said, and it takes some time.
01:11:13:47 – 01:11:23:35
Agent Palmer
I’m always a little wary of like the the the 2000 word post about the event that happened two hours.
01:11:23:40 – 01:11:46:48
Kristin Maier
Right? I know that’s I’m like, wow, you have you been sitting on this? Because that’s a lot of information or a lot of things that you think based on something that happened so recently. I think that we’ve had a few instances where I have written off the top of my head angrily, you know, because that’s when you do write.
01:11:46:48 – 01:12:12:28
Kristin Maier
It’s not when you’re when you’re super happy, you you write when you’re unhappy, usually. So there has been a few times when I have done that. But in most cases I don’t sleep well that night because I don’t know how people are going to react. I don’t really like confrontation, so I don’t want to put something out there that I have to defend unless I really, really feel strongly about it.
01:12:12:33 – 01:12:31:14
Kristin Maier
And if I’m just spewing it out thereafter an emotional thing, then I don’t really feel passionately about it to defend it. So I have to be careful about that, because sometimes I can get into that rat race of defending a point that I really didn’t even want to make.
01:12:31:19 – 01:12:32:58
Agent Palmer
The joys of editing.
01:12:33:03 – 01:12:48:40
Kristin Maier
Yes, that those are the eight paragraphs.
01:12:48:45 – 01:13:13:54
Agent Palmer
One correction on my behalf. No, I’m not near a thousand posts. I have 563 published posts as I record this, 535 of which are mine, the rest being guest posts from friends. But I don’t usually look at those numbers. When you do it week in and week out, you just kind of presume the number is larger than it is because it feels that way, because it’s constantly ongoing, but it’s a labor of love.
01:13:13:54 – 01:13:36:36
Agent Palmer
And if I could, I’d like to restate the three reasons to blog, which can be applied to podcasting and pretty much any other creative endeavor to inform, to entertain and to educate. While all three make for an amazing media to consume in any form, two out of three isn’t bad at all. And when it comes to media consumption, even one out of three is pretty solid.
01:13:36:40 – 01:14:00:10
Agent Palmer
If you walked away informed, educated, or entertained, then that was a success. And if you were two or even three for three, all the better. But it doesn’t make that moment of happiness from entertainment or that one nugget of information or shared wisdom to educate any less important. If that’s your only takeaway. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes.
01:14:00:10 – 01:14:22:52
Agent Palmer
And now for some more official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesday. If you’re listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. Let me hear what you think. You can tweet the show at the Palmer Files, myself at Agent Palmer and this week’s guest, Kristin Maier at K Mae Maier. The show email is The Palmer files at gmail.com.
01:14:22:52 – 01:14:50:17
Agent Palmer
And don’t forget to visit Kristin’s site, honey Bears and Sydney beans.blogspot.com and see what I’ve got going on at Agent palmer.com. Spoiler alert I’ve been reading a lot and watching a lot, so expect more book and streaming reviews coming soon. You can also hear more of me in the meantime on our liner notes, a musical conversation podcast with host Chris Maier and my new gig as co-host of the podcast digest with Dan Lizette, and I’m not sure how long that will be.
01:14:50:17 – 01:15:47:12
Agent Palmer
Still my new gig and will just be the gig. That’s just how it is for now. Transmission over.
01:15:47:17 – 01:15:50:53
Agent Palmer
All right. So, Kristin, do you have one final question for me?
01:15:50:58 – 01:16:35:31
Kristin Maier
I kind of, do. Actually, this is a question that I have been wanting to ask you because you do know a lot about TV and movies and, books and comics and a whole variety of different things that I am totally out of the loop on. I was wondering how you feel about all these new movies that are coming out based on old movies that have women leads like Doctor Who or like James Bond being a woman, or the Ghostbusters as women, or even Ocean’s 11 with women.
01:16:35:36 – 01:16:41:07
Kristin Maier
There seems to be a lot of controversy out there, and I was just wondering how you feel about.
01:16:41:12 – 01:16:59:51
Agent Palmer
I’m not against it. I’m really not. But to me, a remake is a remake is a remake. I don’t care if it’s gender swapped or race swapped. I don’t care if you’re flipping a white man to a white woman, or a white man to a black man or a white man to a black woman. I don’t care.
01:16:59:54 – 01:17:27:52
Agent Palmer
A remake is a remake, and we are now in this ridiculous culture of if it did well before, it can do well again. We’re in this remake culture. There are movies that come out that aren’t remakes, but it’s the same plot as a movie from five years ago. I think we’ve just gotten lazy. It’s become a formula. I think you need to move to independent comics.
01:17:28:03 – 01:17:54:00
Agent Palmer
You need to move to independent cinema. That’s where you need to go for these original ideas. It’s the only place you can go that gets you out of these remakes. And that’s all they are. They’re they’re not even reimaginings. It’s just we chose that person for that role for whatever reason. I think sometimes they like the controversy.
01:17:54:05 – 01:18:07:15
Agent Palmer
I think, you know, the Ghostbusters movie was a flop, at least at the box office, but they got their money’s worth in advertising from people talking about it for like four months leading up to it. So.
01:18:07:20 – 01:18:10:25
Kristin Maier
Okay. Yeah. So you’re just against remakes.
01:18:10:25 – 01:18:26:40
Agent Palmer
It’s just remake culture. Okay. Yeah, right. Something original actually not right. Something original. There’s plenty of people out there writing something original. Hollywood needs to, you know, man up or woman up or, you know, get some.
01:18:26:45 – 01:18:30:14
Kristin Maier
So it all comes back to writing. You want new stories?
01:18:30:19 – 01:18:31:16
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
01:18:31:20 – 01:18:31:38
Kristin Maier
Okay.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).