These days, writers don’t just write. Banish the image of an introverted novelist holed away in a mountain cabin for weeks at a time. Writers must build their platform by maintaining an online presence and engaging in social media. And they must participate in promoting and marketing not only their writing, but themselves. Kinda feels like selling your very soul.

To that end, I’m upgrading my website. And I need your help. Can you let me know why you visit my blog (or website)? What do you hope to find there?

Every product has to have a recognizable and distinguishing brand. Since I’m the product, I need to brand myself. Makes me feel like either a prostitute or a cow. And neither is a good feeling.

What is it that sets me apart? Being given a unique name marked my identity from the start as being one-of-a-kind. Right now I’m typing this perched atop a balance ball. Enough said. I still listen to a different drumbeat. I think of myself as a free spirit artist who bucks against being labeled and confined.

So how do I label myself?

Ever since I remember, I’ve been a storyteller. I try to be real. Candid. Funny at times. Inspiring at others. I love life and think of it as a grand adventure.

What forms my unique voice? What makes my perspective fresh? It’s partly the fact that I’ve traveled (and lived) all over the world. Partly that I don’t follow the prescribed paths. Not too many people wait until their forties to marry. Most women do have children and don’t skip that step to leapfrog into grandmotherhood. Especially not seven years after marriage.

I’ll never forget when my good friend in Romania, Melynda, tried to enlighten Steve. “Does he know that things happen to you?”

He was beginning to get the idea. In my wedding vows, I promised to help change his engineering world from black and white to Technicolor.

What do I write about? My new website will focus on all my writing and also my speaking; not just my book. Mostly I write about faith because who I am is guided by my most-important-to-me relationship with God. But I’m trying to branch out. Right now I’m in the process of selling a short story to a secular publisher.

Since my book is “We Wait You: Waiting on God in Eastern Europe,” I named my blog “Waiting on God: everywhere and for everything.”

I need a tagline under my name that describes who I am. I came up with a few ideas, but am not sure if I captured the right essence.

• Writer. Speaker. Storyteller. Global Adventure Magnet.
• Moonlighting Writer. Occasional Speaker. Global Adventure Magnet.
• Moonlighting Writer & Speaker. Free Spirit. Global Adventure Magnet.

Please let me know your thoughts. Maybe you know me personally. Or maybe you feel like you do from reading my book. Either way, I’d love your help in knowing how best to sell – I mean describe – myself.