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Well, It’s my last post from West Virginia.
Of course, it’s digital marketing; I work wherever there’a an internet connection. Still…
I’ve lived in the Mountain State for almost 15 years. I’ve made life long friends here. I’ve become a part of this place, and it’s become a part of me. It will always be, in some way, shape, or form, home.
This is where I found my life’s work, too.
I have always written. In elementary school, it was cartoons, mostly. Later, I wrote a lot of passionately naive political manifestos. When I was in college, I wrote poetry and fiction in some embarrassing attempts at wooing women.
But it was guiding, and not writing, that brought me to West Virginia. I lived life on the river, kayaking and rafting. In the winter, I would ski patrol at a mountain that embodied West Virginia’s idea of what skiing means (think skiing + nascar / squirrel hunting).
And, yes, I loved it. I loved it all, and was passionate about the fact that I lived a good portion of the year outside. I was skiing and snowboarding and paddling and hiking, and loving life in the mountains.
But what I was really doing was collecting stories. I was on the front lines of tourism, and for the thousands and thousands of people I met, I was the face of West Virginia. I talked to and got to know countless people, people that entrusted me to make their vacations better. They trusted me with their time.
I take what I learned from those years into everything I write. They say to write what you know, and I know people. I know what they want and what they don’t want, most of the time. My preferred style of narrative is loose, informal, and friendly, because that’s how I know people. It works, if the subject fits. The metrics that out.
Like those thousands of people who trusted me with their time, all of our partners trust me with their words.
It’s a huge responsibility. I write, and I’m speaking for them. I’m saying what they want to say about their businesses, to the people who will decide if they, in turn, will trust them. I like that.
I’ve been very fortunate to find such good work. I did what I love, in a place that I loved. And now, I’m moving. I hope my new home in Colorado can live up to life in the Mountain State.
The bar is set pretty high.
