In a moment of self-loathing, I decided that this blog website was completely idiotic and the thought of erasing any trace of these Written Traces briefly crossed my mind.

“Who are you?!” the most recent guy that I dated, a guy that I’d been a mix of flirty and just friends with since I was a little girl of age 12, said to me over the phone one day when talking about my blog, then aroundLAwithTK. He was making the point that “nobody knows TK,” therefore, it would behoove me to lean more than lightly into the biking aroundLA side… go all in!

Who is TK?

“Baw, ain’t nobody searchin’ fa no TK, baw,” he said with a giggle, letting his Vacherie accent come through. And, it’s true. Internet users are not opening up web browsers and typing any variation of who is TK, where is TK, what does TK do, nor tee.krys on Instagram source of income, neither anything about a Te’Keya Krystal, unless it’s someone that was alive in the early 90s, before I was even a thought, wondering what one of the actresses from In Living Color is up to now.

Mon Cher, at the time, was set that my best bet was to zone in to some sort of female-cyclist-writing-about-all-things-biking-in-Southern-California niche. He was well-intentioned and his understanding of building website authority wasn’t wrong.

Pick a niche.

Prior, in addition to my own browsing of various blogs, I’d studied at the good ol’, free, YouTube university and all the most circulated information from SEO experts, as well as advice from successful bloggers, pointed directly at: picking a specific niche and sticking with exactly that! And I’d given it a go… kinda.

aroundLAwithTK was me trying to choose. I wrote a piece about how to dress for Hollywood house parties while the nation was in confinement; I posted an entire series about farmers markets aroundLA; I shared detailed blurbs about Black-owned brick and mortar businesses from Burbank down to Long Beach! I couldn’t resist sliding into social commentary sometimes — writing about how my duck behind let a so-called BFF use me for years and how I’m in full support of Black women not dating broke men — I tied all the topics back into L.A. though [nervous smile]

Los Angeles is not a niche.

I’m no fool. One of the most populated and popularly-searched cities in the world, Los Angeles, is NOT niche. Now, Vacherie, the country hamlet where I’m from whose total population is topped by some high schools, that’s a place that could be a niche. Los Angeles as a blog topic needs specificity.

Niche’ing down.

Cool, I’ll narrow it down. Living in Los Angeles. I could laugh out loud. I really thought I was doing something by adding the brown girl, out-of-town transplant, in her 20s aspects to the living in Los Angeles part. HA! Babe, that’s still broad af.

And maybe it could’ve been enough. But…

I was at a point where I needed to do something different. That’s how me and my childhood-friend-turned-adult-lover were on the topic.

“You have a good idea on your hands, this aroundLAwithTK, it could grow to be profitable one day,” he reiterates his encouragement, “it really could.” He always complimented my brilliance as a writer and let me know that he believed that I could go the distance. Then, as a solution-oriented man, how it’s in their nature to be, even when all a girl wants to do is vent, he began with his suggestions.

There’s such a thing as a blog being too niche.

When I packed up my compact Chevy Cruze and drove across the country from Louisiana to California, I created a Facebook page to share my writings, Journey of a Southern Belle, hosted on a free WordPress site or somewhere. The URL including the hosting website’s name didn’t please my visual system and I quickly grew tired of it. I created a new website on Wix, *I wanna say, then paid for my own domain name, tekeyakrystal.com, and starting writing there, but it didn’t last long. Even though it wasn’t much, I’m still pissed that when there was a lapse in payment from me forgetting about the darn blog, the web hosting site deleted all my writings and I didn’t have them saved elsewhere.

Do you want people to find your blog?

I’d tried it, okay. I’d tried writing online from the truths of my heart and what did it get me? Nothing.

When I gave it a go the first two times, a web presence named after a Southern girl moving out West, then a domain of simply my own name, it served no one. It served no purpose. Who was seeing it? Who was it helping?! No one.

(Granted, I didn’t go for long at all, nor put out much, and the few people that did get the occasional link took nicely to it, but still… It wasn’t enough.)

Picking something for the people.

When I created aroundLAwithTK, centered around living in Los Angeles, I had the slightest bit more of traction than I’d ever had before and I thought, “okay, this might be the way!”

My Los Angeles lifestyle blog was originally born out of people, including both folks from back home in Louisiana and long-time Angelenos, asking me questions. The sorts of hustles that I would find to make extra money for survival in this expensive a** city, the happenings I’d fall into and the familiar figures I’d find myself next to, all of the not-so-regular-to-anybody-but-regular-to-me activities drove interest!

It was working. I was reaching people. Those desiring to visit L.A. found it insightful. Those with no intentions to ever find herself, a white woman married with adult children, in a rapper’s house throwing back shots with InstaThots, found it fun to read.

My brand new blog began to average a thousand monthly pageviews, and from my research at the time, that was reallyyy good! Folks were chatting and bringing it up in conversation and asking me to do a blog post on this or that! I featured girlfriends that I admired and the ladies would share the link on an InstaStory. Before I even created an Instagram account for my blog, Stevie’s on Pico shared my blog mention in an Instagram post on its business account.

Feeding the people is what fired me up.

Voir cette publication sur Instagram

Une publication partagée par Stevie's Creole Cafe On Pico (@steviesonpico)

Giving the people what they want is what works.

That’s why when I hit a wall, I reverted to what worked.

Going from a faceless name like Journey of a Southern Belle and a too-individual tekeyakrystal.com towards an aroundLAwithTK put me in forward motion. Momentarily. It wasn’t consistent. I wasn’t consistent.

The pageviews are where they’ve been. Yeah, I’m still getting requests, but I’m not impressed. I’m not doing enough. I need to do more.

In retrospect, as I sit here in WeHo’s public library, looking north towards the Hollywood hills, out of the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, I guess I could’ve done more of exactly what I was doing. That was some good sh*t. The topics I touched on from the perspective of a young Black girl new to living in Los Angeles kinda hit. Instead, I pivoted in hopes to get past a plateau.

I thought to myself, if niche-ing down from a website with no focus, simply my name in a domain, to a blog about living in Los Angeles allowed me to see growth, the boy must be right, I need to be even more specific about living in Los Angeles and write on this blog about that very specific blog topic and that very specific blog topic ONLY!

I expressed this to a couple of girlfriends that I spent the most hours with on the phone at that time, asking them their votes on what that one specific niche (within the broad topic of living in Los Angeles) should be and while neither gave a suggestion, they both agreed it should NOT be ‘bout no got damn biking!

Child, I had to listen.

…just like a woman, to a man.

Creating a niche by gearing all content towards one specific activity (topic).

I created a new homepage and all, dedicated to all things biking Los Angeles from the vantage point of a girl that rides a bicycle as her main form of transportation.

(I’m being playful about the listening to a man over my girlfriends part. I’d all but decided I was going to go the biking route to niche-down because it was the only thing that I did on a regular basis without trying, other than eating sweets).

Until this moment, that new biker babe landing page’s URL slug was /home. Yeah, this biker babe in Los Angeles bullsh*t was my website’s homepage! Two seconds ago, I exited this blog draft screen and went over to the backend of that “home” page and changed it, /bike-life-home. Come on, I’m not deleting all of my hard work, and more importanly, I’ve been paying for this web hosting subscription for how many years now?! It’s going to store as much as it can store!

Girl, I went all in with the biking in Los Angeles as a fun and friendly female theme!

Is this blog niche what you want?

I was disgusted and I said it often. Disclaimers topped posts saying that it was for the purpose of SEO. Though I thoroughly enjoy being on a bicycle, spinning my legs in circles, smiling as I gaze across distances, feeling an occasional wave of euphoria that I hadn’t even set out to get, I didn’t like writing about it.

Realizing the content niche that I chose is not the content niche that I want.

The narrative should be out there. There should be communities for people who ride bikes, and influencers, if you will, to draw more people into the communities of people who ride bikes. More butts on bikes, Jesus, please! City infrastructure, public policy, bicycle and pedestrian awareness, YES, we need all of this to make streets safe for ALL!

CalBike is doing great work advocating on a State level, politically, for people who ride bicycles. RideOn Bike Shop and other small neighborhood businesses are doing great work keeping local community members riding safely.

Miss T. Krys can do great work elsewhere.

Riding a bicycle around Los Angeles happened very organically for me not long after moving here and it’s not an activity that I have to force myself to do at all. Writing about riding a bicycle around Los Angeles is a different story. I don’t want to do that sh*t, mayne.

Unsurprisingly, forcing myself to blog about something that I didn’t want to be blogging about could only last so long. As much I like to see it; I don’t want to do it. Writing about biking is not what The Lord called me to do. What exactly did He call me to do? Mm. [throws hands up] Hopefully, we’ll find out.

I’m just figuring it out
if you say you ain’t, you lying
the hell you talkin’ about?!
— Mumu Fresh on NPR Tiny Desk

(Note: We’re experiencing a stage in an ongoing metamorphosis as a writer and content creator. aroundLAwithTK became AROUNDwithTK in December 2025, after I decided to stop hiding behind the L.A. I’m realizing that in removing those two little letters, I made a shift towards where the spirit had BEEN trying to lead me, a personal blog, not a Los Angeles lifestyle blog. Yes, I live in L.A., but this ain’t ‘bout no L.A., this ‘bout Tee tudda muhfuckin Kay! And, of course, TK being TK, there was a whole deep dive into this mild brand refresh: Leaving My Trace. Some months ago, I gave myself permission to no longer make an effort to center Los Angeles lifestyle content; now, I’m loosening the reigns even further, allowing myself to write about what-tf-ever… I’m writing.)

Blogging about something no one sees is better than not blogging at all.

Now, paying for a domain name of one’s choice and a web hosting site is a bit much for a website with no return on investment, but… [shoulder shrugs]

Writing about whatever tf I want to write about.

Last month, I took a creative writing course offered within a writing program at UCLA’s Extension campus. The end of it resulted in a work calendar for the next six months.

The individual guidelines the writing course’s instructor helped each of us make, while sitting under fluorescent lights in a Westwood classroom, were simple. A calendar. When are you going to write? For how long are you going to write?

As a gig worker, similar to much of the creative community in Los Angeles, I have no set schedule. Research experts from Huberman’s podcast to the gimmicks of a Diary of a CEO type will suggest anchoring a desired habit to a habit one already does daily. Well, what if I have none?! Child, there’s nothing that I do consistently daily, not even brush my teeth. There’s nothing for me to place a writing session before or after on a given day. None of my days are the same, not one, not for long.

Though I couldn’t give her (the writing instructor, but really myself) a specific weekly when for the next six months, I could commit to a weekly how long.

It’s about writing, that’s it.

3hours/week.

That’s it.

I didn’t complicate it with a what nor how much. Three hours per week and so far it’s working for me.

Three weeks complete and here’s what I see:

a diary.

Nothing dark or deeply personal, just journaling.

Building a writing practice.

That’s how I’m able to get myself to face the page consistently… and more shockingly, want to be! It’s possible that I gravitate towards daily journaling due to being this new to building an actual writing habit. My whole life, I’d only write when I had to (school), when I made myself believe that I had to (executing a plan for increased reach, an external outcome, etc.), or when I was livid to the point where I could †slap me a bih — history proves, and Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing confirms, this is no worthy state from which to write if a writer wants to keep writing.

Pause. Completely off-subject. Let’s give it up for miss mamas getting up from the seat diagonally across from mine. I’d already peeped her studying a thick, paperback, pilates text placed before her and her Benz key fob beside it, her quality white cotton tank, clear borderline-deep-brown skin and even smoother jet black hair slicked into a bun. Then, as her feet came from under the table, they’re slid into some puffy Louis Vuitton slides with her perfectly pedicured white toe tips peeking out. MMKAY! And my girl had her man beside her, showing him what she wanted to eat a moment ago. He let her know that he’s ready to go, “two minutes,” he says, and cutie was closing that computer in 90 seconds. Yessss, more of those sights in the public library, please! Just a well to-do Black couple minding their business, okay?!

Play. Yeah, what was I about to say?

All I know is that I need to finish because I’ve been working on this blog post for three days straight. Today, yesterday and the day before yesterday, I came to the LA County Public Library in West Hollywood, sat my little rear end in the same seat, at some point after three, and didn’t stop working until they made me. The employees are pushing us out as we speak. I’ll have to wrap this up when I get back to my place because I have lil’ event gigs each day the remainder of this week, THANK GOD! Child, sometimes it amazes me how I pay my rent.

[one week later]

Well.

I’m back.

I’m back in my (nearly) same spot in West Hollywood’s public library. I made it here around noon, it’s almost half past one and I just finished catching myself up on what I wrote.

So yeah…

Building a writing practice and sharing it as a blog.

Fck the algorithm. Fck a reach. Fck an SEO.

It’s now Wednesday. When I came in here (the library) and flipped up this computer screen Monday before the one that just passed, I thought I’d begin transcribing the journal entries I’d written by hand into blog pages. The next day, I thought the same. The day after that, I thought the same. Today, over a week later from when I opened this blog draft, I didn’t even bring the large, spiral-bound notebook (where the journal entries are written) with me. I knew better today; I need to close this thought.

I couldn’t merely hop on here and start posting my daily written pages as blog posts. I had to work it out in my head first — I don’t know if this is good or bad, helpful or a hinderance.

How did I get here? Is this what my blog is going to? Is this something that people do?

I actually wish that I could’ve put my fingers on the keyboard to this device and started pumping out content, making it set to publish over this next two weeks. However, my brain decides to ask questions without me asking it to ask questions. [side eye]

Does it make sense?

What’s the point of writing if no one is reading?

I’m always trying to make sense of something.

Until today, I hadn’t written in a week, neither by hand, nor as work on this website. Oh but buddy, those couple of weeks when I did open up that notebook more days than I didn’t, IT FELT GOOD!

I could really be a writer.

I could do this every day.

I could find something new.

I always have something to say.

And when I was doing it, when I was writing more days in a week than I was not, dare I say I could possibly, one day, down the line, after while, maybe get something done? Could I set out on a project and complete it? One day, down the line, after while… Eventually, I’d have to get somewhere, hein?!

It’s discovery, it’s magical, it’s finding out what I want to write about, where I want to go, how I need to clear my mind and make space for flow.

Did the hazy peek at progress make me regress? Subconsciously. No. Surely, it had to be the timing. A solid six days of gigs came in, on top of Miss Girl making her monthly visit simultaneously. Yeah. Ebbs are normal. I’m back, only after a week. Prior, I’d close this computer and it wouldn’t see me for months. And every notebook would’ve gotten more attention on a book store shelf the way I’d go without touching ‘em.

I’m reading.

What’s the point in writing if no one’s reading? Who?! So I’m no one?! Girl, please! I’m reading.

It’s about the practice, it’s about the habit.

I came back to this blog draft page and I read what I’d written over the course of three days last week. It calls me back. It requires me to come back. It demands my return.

When I do my college classic, all-night-flight or binge-work all at once, typically out of necessity or frustration, I’m not reading, nor am I doing much thinking, I’m only going. There’s no need to refresh nor revisit what I’ve written in the same sitting, and really, there’s no time. God saw fit to give me fortune, allowing this low-effort process of writing to get me by, and even excell by the standards of most. Taking it further is overdue.

Blogging forces reevaluation.

I’ve transcribed a few pieces into binary pages that were originally written on physical pages and I’m almost certain that no blog post is exactly verbatim to what was written on the page. Even without trying, somewhere between my eyeballs taking in light to perceive ink on a sheet as words and my brain sending signals to my fingers to type those words, a comma gets added, a verb shifts tense, something changes!

Isn’t that wild, how many functions have to function, yet functioning so seamlessly that we can’t even see it happening?! That’s why I call it magic. Reading and writing. Writing is magic! Reading is magic!

When I’m writing, over time, when I’m caused to revisit my work in order to continue writing that work, I’m placing and processing. My brain is moving items around and finding space for others and grouping and making sense of whatever I was saying, seeing what I feel and where to categorize it and how it plays into what came before and what could come later.

This could be a bunch of gibberish. Good thing it’s me reading.

AROUNDwithTK is an ongoing series of thoughts and reflections from a girl that can’t sit still and always has something to say. Other writers have readers — I like to believe that if you’ve made it this far, you’re one of my riders. Thanks for rolling and I hope you’ll stick AROUND.

Glossary

* I wanna say = South Louisiana vernacular equivalent to “if I remember correctly”

† slap me a bitch = physically assault an individual by hand. similar structure to “I could have me a cocktail right about now” (doubling of personal pronoun)