[Image]I have been discovering a new found love of writing since beginning my blog, Baby Boomer Davy’s Locker nearly over a year ago. I had worked for a major corporation for over 21 years in the Information Technology field and my job was eliminated on May 5, 2008. I actually welcomed this as a blessing in my life as I knew that I was doing a job that was not giving me fulfillment on any level for many years. I was satisfied that I had a good job with a good company, a salary that provided for my family for many years and great benefits. I had been thinking for the past few years of starting some type of small business and looked into a few franchises, of which I discovered so many of them asking for start up fees on the scale of well known brand companies, but didn’t carry the weight of a well known brand name. With all of this in the back of my mind, when I knew that my job would be eliminated, I decided that this was a life event message telling me, this was my time.

During the last year or so, as I continued to develop and learn about blogging and how to improve my writing skills, I found that I loved creative and journalistic writing. I began to write as a guest blogger for a few other blogs and eventually discovered Examiner.com. Examiner.com is not the on-line version of The Examiner print newspaper of San Francisco, but is owned by the same parent company, AEG (link following). Examiner.com is a news site based in Denver, Colorado that allows local citizen journalists to share their city-based knowledge on a blog-like platform, in over 60 cities in the United States. The site owned by Clarity Media Group, with the primary investor being billionaire Philip Anschutz, owner of the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), Regal Cinemas, and other media and entertainment companies.

Although Examiner.com is not solely based on articles written by professional journalists, there are many well known journalists writing for it. To keep it’s more professional style, Examiners need to follow more strict guidelines than they would on their own personal blogs. This has given me some great experience in furthering my writing skills as well as visibility as I gain readers, not only in Pittsburgh, but in other cites as well.

I use Twitter to gain readers and let my followers know when I’ve posted new articles as well as Facebook to ask my friends to become readers.

[Image]

You can follow my articles on Examiner.com by clicking on the Examiner icon on this site [Image] or go to my Pittsburgh Elder Care Examiner homepage.

You can also become a writer for Examiner.com by going to their application page and search for open positions. If you do so, please mention that I told you about applying. If you are passionate about a subject in Pittsburgh or another city on Examiner.com and love writing, give applying a try. They request that Examiners post at least two articles per week but obviously, as you get paid per viewers and reader clicks, you will want to post much more than that if you want to earn income. To me, this is a learning and building job. I am learning more and more about writing, as well as my subject in Pittsburgh Elder Care and I am building visibility as a writer and gaining readers, which can only help me in whatever writing jobs I have in the future. I hope to continue to build readership and some additional income by doing something I love and in the process, provide some helpful information to others going through caring for their elderly parents and grandparents. I had to do a lot of research to find resources when my mother started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. I hope to make it easier for others only starting out with issues of elder care by supplying links to many resources on my homepage.