Candy Keane shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Candy, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What do you think is misunderstood about your business?
A lot of people have no idea what a blogger really does for work. It’s not all writing fun articles and getting free stuff to review! To succeed in blogging and write articles search engines will actually find, you have to have a good understanding of SEO and how to write for the web. And you also have to have some technical knowledge if you are building your own websites.
Refining my blogs is a daily thing, as is writing and editing articles. I get to write about fun stuff, but that is maybe 10% of the time. The rest is all daily work, publishing and editing.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Candy Keane, and I’m a blogger and content creator. I started my first blog, GeekMamas.com, about 10 years ago. I now also have MomtasticMommyBlog.com and MidnightPumpkinBlog.com, covering everything from mom life, to cosplay and costumes.
I owned a costume shop for 11 years before closing it after I had my son. It was my mom experience that got me writing the blog, and it eventually grew into a fulltime job.
I graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Magazine Journalism, so it was nice to go back to my writing roots and be able to apply what I learned in school.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
My dream when I was little was to grow up and have a costume shop. It’s great when a dream comes true, but also it’s a good lesson in getting what you wished for.
I had many amazing years as a costume designer and thought I would always want to do it, until the work started to wear on me. Turning something I loved into a job sucked a lot of the joy out of it.
It turned my favorite time of the year- Halloween, into a non-stop workload.
The saying, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” is so untrue. If you turn what you love into a job, then you pretty much never stop working.
So, I stepped away from the costume biz and started working on my next chapter.
I do also love writing, and I turned that into a job, but I’ve learned a lot from my previous work and how to set boundaries and not let it take all the joy from it. When it gets to be too much, too frustrating, I know to step away and reevaluate my approach and workload.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
One of the most defining moments was when my best friend suddenly passed away a few years ago. It made me realize just how fast you can be gone from this world, and that you need to enjoy the moments you have now. Celebrate small victories because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is very much the real me, just with more makeup. One of the reasons people read my articles is because I’m honest. I don’t try to be something I’m not, and I don’t try to push things I don’t believe in. I post about both the good and the bad.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I feel I’ve always done what I was born to do, both with the costumes and writing. I didn’t have much guidance in being told to do any one thing in particular. I had to find my own path.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.geekmamas.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sewgeekmama
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candykeane/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candylkeane/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/sewgeekmama
- Other: https://www.momtasticmommyblog.com
https://www.midnightpumpkinblog.com
