Career Coaching Backstory #3: The Content Machine

Ever since I was fours year old, I’ve been writing. I put words on paper, in letters, journals, Word documents, blogs, publications and books. It’s what I do and it’s the one thing I do that keeps my over-active mind concentrated and quiet. Not only has it helped me make sense of how I truly feel and think about perplexing situations, but writing has also been my reliable lasso, wrangling me out of dark times and into the light.

While earning my MBA, one cold, winter Rochester weekend I sat down and wrote what would be my first novella: Chatroom to Bedroom: Chicago. It wouldn’t be until a couple of years into life in Cleveland that Danielle, a new friend I had met said to me, “You wrote a book? I’ll but your book.” This perplexed me. Really? Someone wants to read something I wrote? In long form? By that point Jamie Diehm Moore, a former coworker, Chitown friend and editor, had reviewed the project and pushed me to write it in first person. “Either put yourself out there or don’t do it all.” This, of course, terrified me. Then Charles Baxter, my friend Daniel’s father, who is an award-winning author (Feast of Love) and college professor, read my manuscript, gave me notes and provided the right courage to move forward. “This is good chicklit.”

And that’s how the novella journey began. A full decade and five books later, there’s not enough time in the world to write all the stories that are in my head, both fiction and non-fiction. Most a combination of both.

In addition to the books, here in Cleveland, which has served as the perfect muse, all kinds of other creative outlets began to shine their light, including photography. Granted, my parents first put a white kodak manually loaded film camera into my hands when I was back in high school. This apparatus went everywhere with me, long before smart phones turned everyone into a wanna-be Annie Liebovitz. By the time I bought my first digital camera, prior to my trip to Israel, my closets were already stocked full with two decades of images of favorite people, places and things.

But it was in Cleveland that the photography found its place. My hair salon, Studio Palmieri, on West 6th, gave me my first wall space, a generous move that propelled the confidence to do additional shows. And since then, my photographs have been featured in multiple exhibits, some solo, some as part of other collections. Many have sold. Just as many I gave as gifts to people I care about. All the travel I got to do between 2005 and 2008 certainly provided a fantastic portfolio: Ukraine, Germany, Israel, England, Ireland and Spain. What’s not to love? But it was the 216, the gritty city, where I’d walk the streets, parks and alleys for hours, that truly ignited this obsession with looking for the darkness and the light. As the world shows us both.

Between all the writing, including various themed blogs and the books, and the photography, I wanted one home to house everything. So I brainstormed a company title and decided on Creative Cadence. This paid homage to my days of a girl drummer in the ’80s and also signaled the ongoing rhythm of new ideas. My lawyer then helped open the LLC, we secured the Ohio Tax ID, I obtained the URL and in July 2007, Creative Cadence became a business.

The initial goal was, of course, to have it be the home to keep all the creativity in one centralized location. This was my content machine. I had no budget at the time for any fancy logos, so the home page of the site was a photograph I shot of a surfer in Cabo, Mexico. I loved his motion and energy and to me it signaled what the brand was about: taking creative risks and making it back safely to shore.

Back then, in the summer of 2007, little did I know how critical it was that I had a business set up. And that a certain script I began writing that year would, just 17 months later, change everything.