To blog or not to blog?

To blog or not to blog? 

I cannot imagine not blogging! I feel I will blog forever. It is such a big part of my life post teaching. It has brought so much fun and fulfilment. When I say it is therapy, it really is. Although, I do find I am writing when I should be doing the washing up, like now! 

I love thinking of the ideas, or one just pops into my head, and I love seeing where they take me. I mainly write what is there, in my mind, then search pinterest for photos and quotes linked with the theme. I could not write these blogs without pinterest. I am an ideas person; I'm full of them! Just need to sometimes be more of an action person too! Many of my ideas and imagination come from my reading. Love this quote.

We need our ideas to help us start. Once we have started, the writing can then flow. I can be inspired anywhere- on the bus, in a cafe, at the park. You have to go with it there and then!

When my lovely friend told me to write a blog over two years ago, I never dreamed it would have taken off like it did. It started as a tearoom, coffee house blog but it has become so much more. I love that it finds all the amazing tearooms, coffee houses, restaurants and bars. But it also celebrates small businesses and local, independent and handmade. This has become so important to me. 

I do find the ideas flow onto the page. Writing has helped me digest things that have been going around my mind and come to terms with things I have had no control over. It has helped me feel more at peace with certain events that have happened. Two being, my chronic illness and my career ending. 

My blogs have covered a variety of themes and topics, some quite personal. I always attack them with honesty and a sense of humour. When I write, I strip back everything. It is easier to do so, on paper, rather than with physical words. You are writing down your inner thoughts and what makes you tick.

I do love observing folk and events. I do love to look further at the little details. This is even more so since I started to 'stop and smell the roses'. I take much interest in the everyday things and make little rituals from them, like using my fancy teapot. Or, as in today, standing and sniffing the sweet peas! These help in my writing. 

I have always loved writing. Right back as a child, playing secretaries and answering the phone. I loved playing at libraries too and stamping the dates at the fronts of the books. My next door neighbour and I wrote notes in little envelopes all the time and posted them to each other.

I was that child who write realms and realms for their teacher to mark. Sorry! I just got carried away! I remember writing a novel at secondary called, ' An adventure at last'. It even had a yellow cardboard cover! I spent some lovely hours, listening to Five Star's 'Silk and Steel' album, writing away.  I remember too, the Factfiles we wrote about ourselves, with pictures and photos. Then, of a band or singer. I chose Madonna and Debbie Gibson. I always tried to dress as Debbie Gibson. Back when hats suited me! Fab memories!

I wrote all through school, college and my English degree and blooming loved it. Then, your career and job kind of take over. We will all have passions and loves that got shelved over the years. I still loved writing in my teaching, especially guiding the young writers in my classes. I just needed to spend more time on it. Hence, on leaving teaching, it just started up again. I had loved writing modern poetry on the train to uni and now I had phrases entering my mind for poems, whilst I was sat on the bus or in a cafe. This need for writing never left me; it was always there. 

We do get too busy. I definitely did! We do get bogged down by everyday life. We do take too much on. I was guilty of that! It was only on stepping back from all this, that I realised I had to do a little something that I loved everyday. Even if it is just snippets throughout the day, or at the weekend where you have more time, do something for you. Something that makes your soul happy. Something that you are good at, that comes naturally to you and you are passionate about it. 

For me, this is my reading and my writing. I do love singing and enjoyed my time in two fave choirs. The reading and writing though, can be done from home, on the train, in a cafe so anywhere really. I do still sing in the car! But not the shower? I wonder why that is? I do sing in the bath. I have an image now of Julia Roberts with Richard Gere and  her with her Walkman on. Swoon!

Even if it is 5 minutes on a morning, with your coffee. Or 10 minutes at night. Make that time. I learned the hard way. Most of us do. When I was full time teaching, I was squeezing my 'me time' into the hour up to midnight, adamant that I was having this time to watch my Law and Order and CSIs! I was actually just falling asleep on the settee then getting frustrated about it so I might as well have been in bed resting! My 'me time' is now little snippets throughout the day. 

One of my things that I love now doing, is having this 'coffee talk' time, just for me. It is really positive. This book is so good.

In fact, this quote is very true. Give me a book to read, a blog to write, a cup of tea and I am happy! 

As it says in this quote, it does not take much to make me happy. A book, a notepad and a pen and a cup and saucer. The simple things in life.

I can be writing my blog and two hours have passed, easily. I am absorbed into the world, my little world I create. That world where my blogs know me and love me.

It is a mixture of escapism and realism. We write to escape, to dream and to use our imaginations but we also write to record our memories and to make sense of past events. I love balancing the two in my blogs. I always write with honesty and a sense of humour. I have released quite a few angst ridden things I thought I had got over. Clearly not! Writing the words is a release, hence the therapy.

 

When I came across this next quote on pinterest, I smiled. How good is that? We do enjoy things twice. Once as we do them then twice as we write about them!

I am a very nostalgic writer. Many of my blogs focus on the past and I love to wear my rose tinted glasses as I look back on my life. I do yearn for those bygone, childhood days and love writing about my fab family, friends, neighbours, schooling, hobbies and so on, back in the 80s and 90s.

I love it when family and friends say they read my blog and loved it. When people I grew up with, comment on a memory I rekindled and their face lights up at this memory. That, to me is so rewarding. The relationship between the writer and the reader, who appreciates the time and energy, who gains enjoyment, or support through what you have written. I love it! I know I have yet to finish my book, but it is started, at least! So, I can use this quote as my blog being the book. Ooh, now that's an idea! 

I am so lucky with my blog followers and I love it when people interact on posts with comments, even sharing their own photos and their day, their experiences and their thoughts. That, in turn feeds my new ideas. I do write for me, to help me but I also write to, hopefully help others too. It is lovely when some stories are told. In telling them, we help others see they are not alone. So many people, commenting, they have been through something similar. We are storytellers and we are listeners. 

 

There is a need to write. Just as there is a need to read to the end of that book but you fall asleep! We all have the things that drive us, that make us tick. That make us feel more 'us'. Make sure you do these things, whenever you can. And give it your all.