I've been reading a lot about blogging recently. And I mean a lot. I've been reading about editorial calendars and keeping things interesting and fresh. I've been reading about how you should be yourself. I've been reading about how you should be passionate about your topics. And then I got fed up!
It's all good advice, well written advice that I seeked. I googled all these things I have been reading because I wanted to know more. This happens to me a lot – wanting to know more! When I love something, I'll find out as much as I can about it; it happened with photography, sewing, knitting, blogging… you get the gist. Yet, somewhere along my research journey I lost myself a bit. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing nor why I was reading all those things.
It seems to happen as much as my curiosity; the getting tired of the information, the feeling that I'm lost in it and no longer have a voice, leaving it all behind and going back to just doing it, my absolute favourite!
When I first started blogging, and sewing, and knitting, and photographing, and pretty much anything, I just did it. I wanted to do it and I did it. More often than not, things were good. I kept at it and improved. As I progressed, I became hungry for more knowledge and ways to become even better. This is a good thing, wanting to know more! What isn't a good thing is to get lost in an overwhelming sea of (not always relevant!) information to the point you're no longer doing the thing you're researching about, you're in fact just reading about how you can do it better… but not doing it… and losing your voice in the process.
What saves me, always, is getting fed up of it and taking a step back! It has happened with photography and only now am I finding my way again. With blogging, it was a bit quicker! I had backup; I went back to when it all began, not even this blog, but the one before that – my Portuguese blog. It was all there; my reasons to blog and how to do it.
I blog because I love writing AND love having that record of what my life was like back then (through a window, really, but still! I just discovered this second reason, literally, five minutes ago when I saw all those archives and cherished it so much!). And I can just do it. As I feel like, however I feel like, I can just come here and write to my heart's content. That is what makes me happy! And I should just take that and make it into a yellow balloon of happiness and use it as a reminder of why and how I do the things I love doing.
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This hidden post was written in early May. It came after weeks of reading about blogging and wondering why I did it… yet again! I'm pleased to say – enough of that self-doubt. It's unedited; for publishing, I've added the image.
It is fascinating to be able to look back. Drip, drip, drip but over time, like an underground cave, fascinating patterns are formed. Blogging is inevitably an incomplete record (not everything belongs in the public domain, even if there was time to write and publish it all) but, along with the resonances of memory, it forms a fascinating archive to explore from time to time.
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Beautifully put and very true!
The record is indeed the best of it all 🙂