A Blog Birthday.

What with NaNoWriMo and various other things, I realised I’d let my blog ‘birthday’ slip by!

I’ve been blogging here for five years. In that time, I’ve grown and changed as a person and as a writer, and it’s brilliant to go through the archives and see how much my writing style has changed. My writing tone and style has (I hope!) matured as time as gone by. There is one thing I’ve noticed though, and that is the things that matter to me the most – they have stayed more or less the same. Inspiring people, writing about my opinions on feminism, self acceptance and body acceptance, deafness, culture and, of course, books, cats and chocolate, have always been important to me. The direction of this blog might change at times – I’ve noticed that I write more about writing now than I used to, but its only because at this moment in time, I write what preoccupies me. By writing about what inspires me, keeps me going and what I find interesting, I hope in turn that people will also be inspired too.

I’ve dabbled in 30 Days posts, tried a Monday Night Inspiration feature, have tried to blog regularly – but ultimately this blog is still a place where I feel I can be myself, whether that means I blog every day or every now and then. Why do people blog? We all have our reasons. My reason for blogging is not to monetize and find an income stream – it’s to improve myself as a writer, to reach an audience, to have my own corner of the internet. It’s to have a dialogue with myself and the people who may (or may not) read my posts. It’s that simple, even though at times I wonder what it would be like to have a revenue from blogging. I tried that (on my fashion blog) and found I didn’t enjoy it all that much. I still like the renegade style of blogging, even if it takes a lot of time and effort to write a post. It makes it more enjoyable, knowing that I’m writing here because I want to write, not because I have to! If you blog, make sure you keep that joy and remember that you’re doing it because you want to. Maybe everyone and her cat has a blog nowadays, but that doesn’t mean your voice is not still important.

There are things I would like to write about more often – like our cat, Flossie, who is now quite elderly and has the same underactive thyroid condition as Georgina had (she died last year on 29th November). She’s doing okay at the moment, but has lost a lot of weight. She’s still going strong though, and I think she knows just how much we love her. It’s hard when you know time isn’t infinite. All we can do is make her twilight years as comfortable as possible! I would also like to write more about the things I get up to – like baking a humongous carrot cake for my Gran’s 88th birthday last month. I was grating carrots at 2am, I kid you not. It’s the kind of cake you only bake once a year! It was my first ever attempt at a large cake, and it was delicious.

On that note…here’s a photo of said cake (made from the Hummingbird Bakery’s Cake Days book):

Other stuff I would like to write more about include style, food and music…but for the moment, I think I’ll just write whatever and wherever the wind takes me. Be true to your interests and inspirations – and people will read your writing. I’m grateful that people enjoy reading my posts, and I hope you enjoy blogging as much as I do.

I believe the term “blog” means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume. (Michael Arrington)