An Interview With Blogger Tara Carlson From Dividing By Zero

Tara and her husband are raising four children, two of which are autistic. Visit her blog for “daily life” articles, reviews, and giveaways.

What led you to start your blog?

I actually have kind of a 3-in-1 thing going on as far as my blog/business. First there’s my blog, Dividing by Zero. I started it up a couple of years ago to chronicle my experiences raising children with autism. At the time, I was a single mom of three boys, and my two youngest are autistic. As it turns out, though, I was so busy raising three boys that I rarely had the time (or energy!) to write about it.

I got remarried last year to a wonderful man – he went from being a 36-year-old, never-married, childless bachelor to being a husband, a stepfather of three (including two with autism), and as of March of this year, a father. So now we’re a big blended family of six. We made the choice for me to stay home with the kids after the baby was born, and I started looking into ways to earn some money for our family from home. My blog is the hub of that (or is in the process of becoming the hub, at least).

How has your business branched out beyond your blog?

I also do freelance writing and editing, including writing fiction. I’ve published a few short stories, and plan on writing/submitting/publishing more as time allows. The Great American Novel will have to wait until after the baby starts school, though. My fiction, I write under my maiden name (Tara Sayers). But for now, it’s mostly things like ad copy and proofreading for other writers.

I also recently started selling Avon as another source of income (plus I love getting the discounts on the products by virtue of being a rep).

How is blogging related to creativity, in your opinion?

Blogging brings out a lot of creativity in both writing and designing – before I got serious about it, I didn’t really realize how much work it requires! I figured I’d just write stuff and people would read it, but that’s not even close to how it works. I wanted a blog that looked nice and was well laid-out and designed, but I don’t have any sort of web design background, so I’ve been learning as I go. Even with the help of friends who do know what they’re doing, it’s still a huge time commitment.

What do you like most/least about your blog and/or business?

There are still elements I’d like to add or change, but I haven’t yet learned how to do it. So there’s a love/hate relationship going on with blogging – I like being able to take a little piece of the web and make it my own, but it’s frustrating when I have a picture in my head that I don’t know how to translate into html. It’s the same with writing – it sounds great in my head, but sometimes it just won’t go down onto paper the way I want it to.