Lily Snyder

This week I finished an eight-week course from Gotham Writers. I took an online class on memoir writing because I think I have a pretty cool startup story. I’ve also been mulling over writing about how I ended up in the career I am and what led me on the technology path.

You may know from my past posts that I don’t like to concentrate on that I’m a “woman in tech” because I think it has become a pretty politized issue. And I try to keep this blog PC. On the other hand, I can’t ignore the blatant problems that woman face in the tech industry. I also think it’s great to get more women involved in tech fields.

I enjoyed the writing class a lot. The last time I took a writing class was freshman year of college. What was different about memoir writing is how much focus is on oneself as a character. I realized I had a hard time with that because I was so used to writing on this blog which meant guarding myself and any opinions that could be controversial.

I learned the hard way that what you write online can bite you in the butt. I blogged about my very first job out of college (I didn’t last long and ended up calling the job an “internship”). One of the posts I wrote took a shot at the way my boss handled a project I was working on. I made the rookie mistake of sharing the post on LinkedIn, which my boss then saw. She called me into her office, reprimanded me, and told me to take it down. I’ve been careful about what I write about online ever since.

While taking the memoir class, I started to realize that by holding in my stories (the good and the bad) I was preventing, possibly, someone else from learning from my mistakes. Or maybe they might feel better knowing someone has gone through something similar. Maybe they’ll take away some advice on how to deal with an uncomfortable situation or celebrate a good situation properly.

After taking the class, I think I’ll try taking this blog in a new direction again. After all, that is Agile Methodology. 😉 I’d like to test out telling stories versus the essay type posts that are mainly on this blog. I hope you’ll enjoy them along with my opinions. I always look forward to your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you for reading!

~Lilyotron