In Which Kat Kennedy Guest Posts About Co-Blogging. And Crap.

Y'all know Cuddlebuggery, yes? If you don't then you need to check out the blog. It's super awesome. But that's not the point today--the point is that one of the bloggers from Cuddlebuggery was cool enough to write a guest post for me to post and for all you lovely people to read and enjoy and OMG YAY AMIRITE?

You may or may not know Kat Kennedy, and you may or may not have seen her around. But really, you HAVE probably seen her around. That chick is everywhere. But anyway, here's her guest post on co-blogging and those type of shenanigans. Oh, and crap. Did I mention that she mentions crap?

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Have you guys ever received an email from Jessica Baker?  Most hilarious thing ever. Her random use of all caps is a magical thing that everyone should witness at least once.  But anyway, onto the work part.  I offered to guest post here for Jessica because she’s fabulous. I asked her to think of what she wanted me to talk about.  Here are the options I received:

a)      Encyclopaedias

b)      Having a blog partner

c)       Being snarky

And

d)      Crap

Out of all those options, I think I’m going to go with b) Having a blog partner.

Having a blog partner is a wonderful thing.  For real, Steph is the best person ever. She lets me rant on the blog with almost free reign, she handles authors and blog tours that I’m too lazy to do, she keeps the blog working and she is my soul twin.

For real, I met Steph only shortly before we started the blog together.  So it wasn’t like we were friends before we made the agreement to be blog buddies.  We were random acquaintances who teamed up to fight evil, or something like that.  But, what started as a business agreement, quickly became one of the deepest, most important relationships (apart from partners, parents, children etc).  She’s my twin, and we are now life buddies.  We message each other first thing in the morning, all through the day, and say goodnight to each other before we go to sleep. 

Being so deeply in love, as Steph and I are, is obviously an ideal that not everyone can achieve.  We’re living the dream here, guys.  However, we did make some very conscious decisions before we started our love affair/bloggermance, and during our initial relationship, that I think were helpful.

1)      We were very clear about boundaries and expectations

Steph and talked very clearly and exchanged numerous emails. We made agreements on the style of our blog, what our direction, niche and style was going to be.  Most of these things we stuck to, or negotiated over time.  Others, like our agreement that we’d be casual and only post when we felt like it was tossed out the window when we both realized we were complete workaholics.  The important thing is to have a plan about how you’re going to operate your blog, what it’s going to look like, and what should happen to it should one of you decide to quit.

2)      Bond Your Pants Off

Steph and I love each other.  We are both in similar situations in life – we both have young kids of similar age, similar backgrounds and life stories.  So we’re less blogging buddies and more like two people just doing life together.  We bonded our pants off (literally.  If we end up in bed together one day, it will be a surprise to no one), but we also respected each other’s differences and focus on all the things that bring us together.

3)      Let Go of the Control

Having a blog partner, a partner FOR LIFE, is all about letting go of control, collaborating and accepting that compromise is the spice of life.  I can’t tell you how many times Steph and I have disagreed on bloggery things.  But the blog is always better when we both relinquish control, and chill. A coblogger is not someone who joins your blog and does all the work for you.  A coblogger is someone to build a blog with.  Steph and I have had a long struggle.  She wants us to experiment with memes, I’m violently opposed.  It is the only argument about the blog we’ve continually had for the almost-two-years we’ve been working on the blog.  But everything else we’ve found a compromise on, or just plain given in to each other out of respect.

So there you go, that’s my recipe for a good blogger relationship.  I don’t know how helpful I am.  Steph and I are this amazing team, and I can’t honestly say it’s because of anything we did.  We just fell in love with each other.  It was an automatic chemistry, but one I’ll never regret.

So there you go.  Love you, Steph!  My honey pumpkin!

Thanks, Jess, for having me on the blog!

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BOOM. That's it. Great, right? I found it amusing. Then again, I find everything Kat says amusing. Informative, too, of course, but mostly amusing.

 

Thank you so much to Kat for taking the time to write a guest post for me! And you. But mostly me.

 

So...do YOU have anything to say? Any opinions? What do you think? TELL ME. Seriously, I'd like to know.

Oh, and, fun fact: I linked to Cuddlebuggery and Kat's Twitter up at the top of this post. Clickety-click and join in on the randomness that IS Kat Kennedy.

 

♥Jessica(: