I'm over having a niche.

You hear it everywhere: in order to be successful, you need to have a clear industry niche. Your clients need to look at you and immediately understand the problem you can solve for them. And while this is true to an extent – you need to be clear about your products and find a captive audience – I think this strategy may be a bit more flexible than we’ve been taught to believe. At least when it comes to your career.

You see, my life is split in two – I am an adventure and culture writer who loves hitting the trail and seeing the world, but I’m also a working circus artist who pours hour after hour into her craft and fills her evenings with gigs, shows and classes. For a long time, I viewed these as diametrically opposed pursuits and split my digital (and professional) life up accordingly.

When I do that, though, people don’t get a whole picture of me. It may look like I’m not churning out articles, but that’s because I’ve been managing a dozen dancers for an original show I’m helping produce. I may not be hitting the circus tour circuit, but it’s because I’m spending weeks at a time on the road writing about our marvelous planet and the people on it. I’m busy growing in lots of different ways that you won’t see if you only follow one side of my life.

After some encouragement from other freelance colleagues, I realized that my “two lives” are complimentary. Maybe that adventure or fitness writing client will see my circus experience and commission me for a related piece. An art or crafting magazine might see that I make my own clothes and aerial costumes and realize that I have expertise to share. On the flip side, a circus client may see that I travel regularly and can bring that element of myself to the stage. Or that I’m adaptable and equipped to handle fast-paced environments and strenuous activity. I frequently project manage, run social media strategy, and determine logistical operations for both realms, too.

And so, this is the official launch of my little rebrand. I present to you a more whole vision of myself and what I offer in the professional sphere. So much about both my industries has changed in the past two years, and what we thought worked maybe just…doesn’t? At least for me. Instead of trying to fit myself into defined boxes, I’m going to build a box of my own. <3

Welcome to the blog!

Let’s begin with a good ol’ fashioned introduction.

Hi there. My name is Bailey and I’m The Traveling Bee. A few general bullet points about me, if you don’t know me already.

• I’ve worked in the publishing industry for over a decade. I’m a freelance writer, editor and content creator.

• My writing has largely focused on travel, but I like writing about all sorts of things. Writing about myself is the scariest. 

• I’m also a working aerial acrobat, both a performer and instructor. What can I say, I’m really into flying.

• I’m based in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s lovely here.

Pre-pandemic travels to Tahoe. Gorgeous place, eh?

I’ve mulled over how to start my first public blog post for a couple weeks now — should it be business-like or irreverent? Should it discuss travel, writing or circus? Who is it for? Potential employers, my friends, or just myself? Am I a person or a brand, or both?

If it were business as usual, answering those questions might be a bit easier. But I’m writing this entry two months into a quarantine for an international pandemic, and life is firmly not business as usual. Like many (most?) people, everything that I defined my life by has been stripped away. My travels, my commissions, my gigs, my classes. Now it’s just me, trying to figure out how to pivot and adapt. 

In the vein of being honest, all this change struck me at an important time. I had been working myself into the ground for months, stacking project on top of project, hopping from commitment to commitment with barely a moment between. Freelancer FOMO is real, y’all. It sits on your shoulder like your own personal Anxiety Devil: pitch now or you’ll miss the publication opportunity. Don’t say no to this gig — you might not have another one. Better produce more content NOW or everyone will forget about you. The Big Burnout was going to catch up to me sooner rather than later.

And then the world came to a standstill.

No sugar-coating it, the financial fall-out has been real. I’m a travel writer with no travels, a teacher separated from her students and a performer with no stage. But something else has happened in this moment of forced stillness. I’m writing just because I like to. I’m reading more, and I’m finding new ways to dance. As the days pass, I watch the Tennessee trees light up with bright green leaves, blossoms coming and going in staggered technicolor bursts. The southern springtime humidity prickles my skin, and everything around me is transitioning into a new state. Time for me to take a page out of nature’s book — time to grow.

I asked myself why I write in the first place, and I wrote a long, soppy draft about my path to the page, a gloriously terrible, self-indulgent piece of writing that shall absolutely never be read by anyone else. But it brought a few things into focus.

Writing can be a tough profession — it’s not as simple as just being able to spin a good yarn. You have to be marketable and to know how play the game. Article angles have to generate clicks and headlines have to be SEO-friendly, and sometimes your best, most favorite story — the one about that beautiful moment on a mountainside that defined an entire adventure, or that meal that doubled as a profound history lesson, or that funny hotel clerk straight out of a Wes Anderson film — will never be published.

But despite all that, I still write. I love writing about cool people doing good things and beautiful places that should be protected. I’m in love with the art of paying attention and practicing empathy, of writing to make a difference or to make someone feel something.

I want this blog to be a space for dreams. For observations and honesty. For silly stories and vulnerability and art. It might be all or none of these things, but if nothing else, it’ll be genuine. That I can promise you.