Five years ago today I gathered with a group of a dozen women at a local Mexican restaurant to talk about writing. This was the first official event of See Jane Write.
Today, See Jane Write is an award-winning business and boasts a lofty mission — to empower women to be the authors of their own lives through writing, blogging and entrepreneurship. I want women to write and live lives worth writing about. I want to teach women how they can use their words to make a living and to make a difference. I want to help women build their blogs into businesses and turn their passion for writing into a profitable career.
But when I started See Jane Write five years ago, my intentions were less noble. I started See Jane Write five years ago because, quite frankly, I was sad. Very sad. So sad I could barely get out of bed most mornings.
In 2009 I left my newspaper job in Louisville, Ky., and moved back to Birmingham (where I was born and raised) to teach. The classroom and the newsroom are very different places and I was having a hard time adjusting. And since I no longer felt like a “real journalist,” something I’d wanted to be since I was 15, I was having an identity crisis, too. I was also regretting returning to my hometown and, most of all, I missed being around fellow writers.
So, I started See Jane Write. And that changed everything.
