This is Take It Outside

It's a newsletter/blog/roundup-of-my-writing sort of thing.

I cut my teeth in the writing world back when blogging was a thing (back in the olden days when you had to type out blog posts by candlelight while hiking barefoot uphill both ways). It was a time when a person could carve out their own little corner of the blogosphere and be honest, raw, and thought-provoking. My little corner was Different Than Average. I mostly wrote about my counter-culture approach to life and raising children back then. In 2017, Blogher and She Knows Media recognized me as a Voice of the Year Honoree for a little piece I wrote for that blog, “The Beautiful Mess Our Children Leave Behind.”

Some other big things happened in 2017. My dad, who I thought was invincible and far too ornery to die, left this world after suffering a heart attack on the last day of the Virginia deer season. I was hit in the face with the concept of mortality and missing him fiercely.

Then my youngest child entered high school. After nearly a decade and a half of homeschooling and immersive mothering, I was hit in the face with a full-fledged identity crisis. Because life is short and dreams don’t chase themselves, I started pursuing a new career.

Daddy was a man who could read the woods like no one else I’ve ever met. He was also illiterate. As soon as I was old enough to read, he started handing me copies of magazines like Field & Stream and Outdoor Life to read out loud to him in the evenings. The running family joke is that I learned about the birds and the bees while reading an article about the whitetail rut in F&S. Since I was missing my father and the life he shared with me in the outdoors, that was the direction I went, and I went all in.

A few small publications took a chance on a no-name woman outdoor writer with no formal writing training but a deep passion for hunting and fishing. I started to build a portfolio and fell in love with my new career.

These days, my children are grown, and I make a living stringing together pretty words. As an outdoor and gun writer, my work has been featured in Field & Stream, Recoil, Free Range American, Pew Pew Tactical, Backwoods Survival Guide, Backwoodsman Magazine, and many other publications online and in print. I still have a hard time believing people actually pay me to do what I love.

Why a Newsletter?

Some time ago, a friend found a gun article through a Google search and was surprised to find out I had written it. Then a few months later, he stumbled across another of my articles floating around on the internet.

“I'm beginning to think you should send out a newsletter that I need to subscribe to so I can keep up with your stuff.”

Well, Nicholas. Here it is.

And since I’ve been repeatedly shadow-banned on social media and occasionally had posts removed for everything from gun reviews to criticism of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction, I figure a newsletter is probably the best way to communicate these days.

Besides, as contributors, professional writers rarely get to write about all the things that spark our passions. Too often, we’re constrained by “search engine optimization,” advertiser interests, affiliate marketing relationships, and rampant social media censorship.

Take It Outside is a way for me to jump out of those boxes and focus on the things that light me up. If you ever followed Different Than Average or liked any of my hunting or firearms content, or if you’re just into getting outside, harvesting your own food, living a self-reliant lifestyle, or stretching beyond the limits of your comfort zone, you might enjoy coming along for the ride.

I’m glad you’re here.