Writing a Blog to Change Your Life

With my little one

Entering the tunnel

I launched Succes Diaries in order to keep myself going during tough times that included a recession, unemployment, divorce and eventually, bankruptcy. If my entries helped others who may be facing similar issues, so much the better.

I started blogging a few times a week, while I strived to find writing gigs and resolved financial and personal challenges. I started this blog in English and then decided to write it in Spanish too, as Diario del Éxito, which is now also at Diario del Éxito at Hola.com, which has helped me reach more readers.

Always looking forward

An Internet entrepreneur noticed what I was doing and hired me to write paid blog posts, and that’s how I started to learn SEO (search engine optimization). Shortly after, another company hired me to write SEO content for websites, which taught  me even more about writing for the Internet. I had to reduce my Success Diaries postings to two a week, as I again got more paid work.

When I applied to be a writer and editor for Consejos de mamá (Mom Recommends) at About.com of the NY Times Co, I was already fluent in SEO and writing for the web, but the application process taught me even more. When I was chosen to manage that website, I understood it was a wonderful chance to keep on learning on the job - HTML, SEO, key words, linking and social media presence - while writing about something I’m passionate about: motherhood.

A recent girls-only vacation

In the meantime, I wrote a book based on this blog, which will be released in February of 2012, by ediciones Obelisco. I am also a weekly contributor for Mamiverse, the online hub for Latina moms, in English, and will soon be up and running as a collaborator for a new platform for Latinos: VOXXI. Another project will soon be launched with two other wonderful writers I’ve met on the way to follow my dreams, and there are more in the works.

The light at the end of the tunnel
In short, something I started just to keep my spirits up – this blog – helped me create a platform on the Internet and a following that has resulted in my professional reinvention and success. I was able to adapt to the Internet in order to, once again, make a living doing what I love: writing.

The global crisis is still there. Many are still unemployed and confused, as I was. I look back and I recall how difficult it is to get out of bed in the morning when you´ve lost it all.

If that is you now, don´t despair. Focus daily on something that lifts your spirits and do it consistently, while you look for a way to overcome your struggles. Life goes on whether you fight for your dreams or not, and I hope that one day you will look back as I do now and think: “I don´t know how I did it, but it was well worth the fight.”

Now I only write weekly entries in Success Diaries, because I am so busy with my work, but I won´t stop posting, because I know from my stats that there are people who still find inspiration here, even if only to take one more step towards their goals.

The engine of my life

Thank you for following me on this crazy rollercoaster called life!

Some of my articles on Mamiverse.com that may inspire

From Middle Class to Foodstamps: A Latina Mom´s Tale. Please read and share. There may be other women out there who don´t look like they need the help. But, you´d be surprised at how many are still struggling.

A Latina´s Journey to Bulimia and Back. This was the subject of my first book, published in 1993 and still in print. I hope it helps other sufferers and their families.

After a Lifetime of Searching, I Found My Tribe. On growing up bicultural and bilingual. I am proud of my mixed roots and strive to instill this pride in my kids.

A Child´s Mantra. The lessons I learn from my kids.

If you enjoy this blog follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Read my articles on Mamiverse.

Diario del Éxito (Success Diaries) will be published in book form in February 2012 by ediciones Obelisco.To read about my books: www.lorrainecladish.com

You Could be a Host Family for Exchange Students from Spain!

It’s a small world! Three years ago I reconnected with a friend I had gone to school with in Spain, at King´s College, 30-some years ago, and it turned out we both live in Florida, albeit in different cities.

She is the owner of Spanish Legacy, in Sarasota, FL and is now preparing English camps in Sarasota for Spanish students. The youths enroll in two-week camps in which they stay with American host families during evenings and weekends and spend most of the day at camp, learning English and participating in a host of activities.

Being bi-cultural and bilingual myself, I can only speak of the benefits of learning first hand about other cultures and languages. It broadens your horizons and opens doors that are closed to those who only know their own culture and language. This is a modern-day reality. The more languages you speak, the better equipped you are to network with the whole world! The Internet has made this possible.

If you have teenage children, you may want to consider inviting a Spaniard into your home and make him or her a part of your family for two weeks or more next summer.

Spanish Legacy carefully selects the host families and the exchange students and it is a win-win situation for both parties. 

My children, also born of bilingual and bicultural parents (multi-cultural would be more accurate!) attended Spanish Legacy last summer to learn Spanish, and I can say that every trip they take to their other country, Spain, brings them back more fluent and more open-minded and self-confident.

To know more about Spanish Legacy and their summer exchange programs in Florida, visit www.spanishlegacy.com .

To know more about my books, to include the latest, which will be released next month, visit: www.lorrainecladish.com

The Bilingual Advantage

When I say I´m bilingual I don´t mean that I sort of speak two languages or that I have a good command of one but only read the other. I speak, read and write Spanish just as well as English. Not only that, but I´m bicultural and in my childhood I adopted a third culture. I´m American on my mother´s side, a Spaniard thanks to my dad and proficient in the British culture, having attended a British school for over 10 years. The bilingual advantage is huge, especially when it comes to having command of the two most widely spoken languages in the world (Chinese is a whole different story, since it´s spoken mainly in China).

Being successfully bilingual is not something I´ve achieved on my own, of course. I owe it to my dad, who also has this advantage. He owes that to himself, however, since he traveled to the U.S. when he was 16, went to college here and then was a university professor, after obtaining his PhD in Spain. When we moved from the U.S. to Spain my father, who is now a lexicographer (he compiles dictionaries single-handedly, without the help of teams or helpers), he took on the challenge of teaching my sister and me two languages and doing it well. The result is that I´ve made a good living as a language interpreter and that I´m able to translate a text in the same amount of time that it would take me to copy it in the original language. I can read the great American authors in English and the Spanish classics in Spanish.

Being bilingual and bicultural opens your mind, opens doors and even your heart. You are able to conceive of more concepts when you speak more than one language, since there are concepts that only exist in one language. You also “get” other bilingual and bicultural people. It´s a sub-culture that only the like-minded understand and builds instant rapport.

I now know how difficult it is to make your kids bilingual, because up until now I haven´t had the support, the time, energy nor the means to devote myself to teaching my kids Spanish the way they deserve to be taught. But, it´s not too late and I want them to have the same advantage that my dad gave to my brother, sisters and me.

Besides, my father, Delfín Carbonell Basset, has devoted his entire life to teaching English, with his learning system and his master classes. He is a great teacher, a rarity …

In an upcoming post I will speak about his blog On the English Language and his other successes that have nothing to do with my being bilingual.

If you speak more than one language, share that skill with your kids. It is the best gift you can give them!

http://www.lorrainecladish.com/