blogging

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Missing you

Hmmm…. just looking at me little blogs stats and realised that it’s been a dry year so far. Mainly, as I explained in an earlier blog (you remember… I’m sure you do…), that I can’t post any of my writing because of publishing restrictions on the course I’m doing (an MA on Creative Writing with the Open University since you ask). I actually daren’t post any just in case they’re half reasonable and I can fish them out when I’m in dire need halfway through next years module. But anyways…

Looking back I can see that actually when I first started this ‘journey’ I wasn’t posting that much creative writing stuff, more a mishmash of things I like, moany posts about life in general, and some photographs. The most activity was around the events hosted by wordpress, such as photo101 and writing101 which encouraged me to post every day. They were most excellent at keeping me on track and a lovely way to meet new online friends and get more followers. They were my most productive times on the site.

Oh I know I shouldn’t need that push and shove, but you know what it’s like, life gets in the way and there’s all sorts of excuses I could use – for instance, I have to take the dog to the vets in a mo’ and I’m busy bracing myself – it’s fair to say she doesn’t like it much! Anyone who’s met my dog knows she is a nervous sort and that’s enhanced a 100 fold on a trip to the you know where’s. It’s emotionally draining. No, not for her.. for me…

Anyhoo, I digress. One of the other reasons I haven’t been around here much lately is because I’ve taken on a couple of other sites (suttonartgroup and retwords) so have been busy making them look all pretty and alive whilst letting my poor flower die off a bit. This needs to be redressed methinks.

Therefore, I hereby promise to prattle on and post more frequently despite the limitations, and one day, when I eventually finish this darn course, I’ll be able to share that mountain of poetry and prose that is building up on my laptop.

Hope it’s worth the wait….

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All I want is a room somewhere…

Writing 101 day 6 – Where do you write?

Generally I reserve time in the morning to write.  A couple of hours dedicated tapping on my laptop. I could of course, spend all day, but that ends with my having a guilt trip about not getting the housework done or the dinner ready, so I try and limit my absorption.

Of course, some days my mind is a blank.  There is nothing, nothing, to write about. My life is dull, my imagination run dry.  I think it is with these days in mind that I choose to sit on the sofa in our sitting room when I’m writing (yeah we have a study, but who uses one of those for goodness sake! I’d have to climb over the mountains of paper an’ everything).

We are very lucky to have two comfy rooms with sofas.  One, which I tend to call the living room, is where we sit in the evening and watch TV, or loll about and read the newspapers on a Sunday morning.  It has a bay window overhung by our very old oak tree at one end, and French windows looking out across the garden at the other.  I treated myself to a chaise longue when we decorated and that is in front of the French windows.  It’s where I drape myself to catch winter rays or watch the rain in summer, it is most definitely not made for working from. The sofa in here is facing the fireplace not the window.  And there’s the rub.

So… it would appear that I write sitting on the sofa in the sitting room because the sofa faces the large picture window which gives me a view of the garden (this is news to me too… I’ve never really thought about it before!).  We have a pear tree just in front of the window, which is where I hang the bird feeders.  All manner of birds come to get their share of nuts, seeds, insects (yuck, those dried ones…) and fat balls.  In fact, I have my own little viewing gallery right there.  The room is always bright and cheery, and in the finer weather I can open the door onto the patio and hear the birds bickering while warm breezes circulate.

However, lovely and entertaining as the view is, there are I think, other subliminal reasons why I use this room.

In the sitting room I’m surrounded by memories.  I have cushions scattered about that I have made from tee-shirts bought as reminders of holidays but never worn (right now I’m leaning against a huge gold picture of Mickey Mouse bought as a tee-shirt at Disney in Florida nearly 20 years ago) Photo’s and souvenirs from trips to distant places, a selection of LPs from my youth which we can’t play ‘cos we don’t have a turntable, plants that are growing way too big, in fact just about everything ‘wot I like’.

This room is also the room where we play board games at Christmas, huddled around the coffee table, snacks and drinks on the floor, yelling at each other with frustration or glee when we win or lose or get totally outmanoeuvred (to be truthful its usually only me that that happens to). Where we sit quietly in our ‘oingy boingy’ chairs from Ikea and get stuck in a novel, or where we work out whether or not we can afford that next holiday.  It’s a room for parties – push back the chairs and there’s a good space for a boogie, and for yoga practice – its got a perfect wall for practicing handstands against.

I never thought a room could be inspiring, but with my selection of oddments and memories right here with me, and my wild garden only a glance away, I doubt I’ll ever completely run out of things to say!

Just in case I do though….

We’ve been asked by the wordpress fairies to ask our readers for suggestions on what to write.  I don’t know any more than that at the moment, but if you’ve got any ideas just let me know by commenting below, for now… I’ll think about a contact page later 😉

Have a good day!

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Why do I write? Well…

Posted in response to the Writing 101 1st day prompt of ‘Why do I write’:

… there is no one reason why I write.  In fact, I really don’t think about the ‘reason’, I just do it.  But now I’m being forced into examining my motives they are clearly quite complex.

For a start, I do like the feel of scrawling pencil on paper, as well as my thoughts tumbling out and becoming formed through my fingers via a keyboard. Also, I like to play with words, constructing sentences and then improving, changing, and finding new ways of expressing them. I spend hours consulting dictionary and thesaurus until I’m satisfied that my words are as fluid and beautiful as I can make them (of course, they are still never quite good enough though!).

I can be the ‘real’ me…. or someone else, depending on my mood.  It certainly gives me the opportunity to express my dark side (in fact, when I took a creative writing course my tutor mentioned that the darkness suited me!) I can write characters that I’d like to know, or individuals who are clearly bonkers.  I can exorcise nightmares by turning them into stories, or write poems based on pretty dreams. Occasionally, I write things based on episodes in my life and never tell anyone that there is truth in there. Or I can vent, and moan, or share silliness, or adventures.  I can gossip or advise, be sensitive or crass. The world, as they say, is my lobster (yep, I know it’s oyster, but I changed it… yeah, I can do that too!)

I guess I benefit in many ways.  Writing is a creative outlet that I can immerse myself in, abandoning all other thoughts and worries. In that sense it ticks the ‘mindfulness’ box that we hear so much about these days, and in its way it is meditative and calming.

My question then, is not why I write, but why wouldn’t I?

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What’s it mean? Wednesday

Magniloquent – speaking or expressed in a lofty or grandiose style; pompous; bombastic; boastful.*

What a great yummy word!

Say it out loud – it starts with that hard ‘g’ at the back of your throat, then a roll of the tongue, and ‘oh’ and then softens off at the end with a gentle ‘t’.

Mind you, you’d probably be guilty of that very thing if you threw it into a conversation or bit of writing.  I must say, I hope I’m not magniloquent.  I like to think that anything I write is fairly simple, readable, and concise, and I do tend to use pretty basic language (let’s be honest here, I’m not actually sure I could use anything but simple words even if I wanted to).  Sadly though, even simple words can easily be misenterpreted, or not interpreted at all, and as bloggers, of course, we should be very considerate of that.

I often write verses the meaning of which is perfectly clear to me. Yes, of course I use metaphors and similies and all that stuff, but I always think they’re obvious not just to me, but to any other readers too. Clearly they are not. Well, not to everyone.  Our minds work in different ways.

For instance, I changed the name of a recent poem I posted.  The original name was ‘Suicide Son’ which is kinda what came to mind as I was writing it, but I thought it was a bit of a horrible title, both shocking and unpleasant, so I changed it to ‘Why?’ (you can read it here).  From the comments I’ve had both on the blog and from family and friends, it is obvious that this has several completely different interpretations to the one in my head when I wrote it.

Not that I mind. Perhaps the original title would have made the intention clearer, but I think poetry should be open to interpretation, and it’s just as well that not everyone has a macabre mind like mine. And after all, I can console myself with the fact that I find even the most famous poets work pretty mystifyi ng sometimes.

Anyhow, I guess making things a bit ambiguous isn’t quite the same as being magniloquent, so I’ll just keep on keeping on for now.

Toodle-ooo!  🙂

*definition courtesy of Dictionary.com

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It’s a goal!

P1020220

That’s me up there on that parachute, that is!

Oooohhh.,..yay, yay, and triple yay!!  Had to just tell you…Today I’ve exceeded my goal as set out in writing 101 challenge a little while ago (you can read my goals here) and got over 220 followers – and it’s only mid November!

Sorry, I’m sure it’s unseemly to get so excited over what may, to some, seem so few, but it only seems a little while since I was struggling to get into double figures. It has been amazing how taking part in a couple of events has helped transform my blog and the way I feel about it.  Although I’m spending (too many) hours working away at it, it’s no longer a slog and I look forward to producing new posts regularly as well as seeing what everyone else has been up to.

As I feel like a bit of a winner today, in the time honoured tradition of winners everywhere, I’m going to have to say a few thank you’s:

Ah hem!…

Thanks to Writing 101 for:

*Giving me some great, mind jiggling, prompts
*providing the opportunity to share and get feedback from lots of lovely folk
*getting me in the habit of posting every day

Thanks to Blogging 101 for:

* Getting me to set some goals in the first place
* teaching me to tweak my blog to make it look pretty (ahh..)
* For having a great common room where I’ve met lots more lovely folk.

Thanks also to the ongoing Photo 101 for:

* Setting me new (and frankly, quite challenging) challenges every day
* Helping me reach an even wider band of lovely folk
* And for keeping up my enthusiasm for posting daily.

Of course, its mainly thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and comment, especially if you clicked on the ‘follow’ button – love to you all mwah, mwah

errrmmmmm…..you’d better not leave… 🙂

P.S.  I’m looking for the next 220 now, so tell your friends…!! x

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Tick Tock – am I wasting my time?

dandelion

The clocks went back an hour on Sunday morning, and my body clock has not yet adjusted.  So with my brain’s usual contrariness I woke up at what would have been 6:30 a.m. on Saturday but was in fact 5:30 a.m. today.  Normally of course, the alarm alarms me into half wakefulness (enough to reach for the snooze button) and it needs two more attempts to rouse me to the point where I can crawl out of bed.  This morning though, I was wide awake. Waiting.

It occurred to me that I have wasted an awful lot of my time waiting one way or the other.  I suspect at least a couple of years of my life were spent sitting in the car outside of various establishments waiting for the kids to come out of drama/violin/gymnastics/St John’s/choir classes or other kids parties.  And later, as taxi driver extraordinaire, waiting in the car at a distance from whichever pub or club they’d been to.

Then there’s the level crossing further down our road that we had to cross to get to their primary school.  Heaven only knows how many hours I’ve lost sitting waiting for the trains to pass.  The other day me and the dog were there for 20 minutes – that’s five trains worth. Twenty precious minutes of my life, gone, just like that.

And while we’re about it, what about waiting at airports, stations, waiting for buses, waiting at the dentist, the doctors.  My life ticking away while I’m sat reading out of date copies of ‘Practical Caravan’ or ‘Angling Times’ neither of which I have any interest in whatsoever.

A couple of weeks ago we watched a fantasy type film called ‘In Time’ (see the trailer here) where everyone lived until they were 25 after which they had to buy time, otherwise they were ‘terminated’.  Time was currency, and everyone had a clock built in to their arms which they could see running down.  Employment was paid in hours.  The wealthy could live forever.   Poorer people ran everywhere to save their precious minutes.

Of course, it was daft, but I did find it thought provoking (and actually much better than it sounds – worth a watch).  It made me think about the hours I waste, and the difference between wasting time, and, well, living.

Am I wasting time when I play games?  Is playing Candy Crush Saga on my phone any worse than sitting watching pap TV or reading a bit of entertaining chick-lit?  Am I wasting time when I’m writing?  Aaagghhh… now there’s a question.

I certainly spend a lot of time writing, or at least messing about on my blog, tweaking it, reading other blogs etc.  Hours pass by miraculously quickly and I often think ‘I must stop this and do something useful’.  And then go and do a bit of sewing, which if I was making clothes might be termed as useful, but I don’t, I make soppy things out of felt (you can see some here!).

I suppose it brings me back to the question of why we do creative things.  Whether it’s wasting time to just enjoy yourself.  Lose yourself in creating something original, unique, perhaps even entertaining or useful.

I’ve searched the internet for answers, and not really come up with anything definitive.  But I have had a deep think about my motives.  My motives for wanting to write, to want more followers, more readers, this urge to foist my thoughts on the unsuspecting public.  After all, I don’t think they’re particularly enlightening thoughts, probably not original either for that matter. It doesn’t even earn me any money for goodness sake!

But I have come to a conclusion:

The reason I write all this stuff and nonsense, the reason I post it on my blog for all the world to see (if they care to – come on world!), is to leave a mark.  A mark of the real me.  Not the me that is a mum or daughter, or wife even, nor the me that colleagues knew, but the nugget of me, that even I don’t know about until I start putting things on paper, the central joy of the absurd, as well as the deep chasms of darkness, that my inner self seems to dwell in sometimes. It is the yin to my outward yang.

Most of my family have found it hard to understand why my short stories tend to bend towards the dark side.  Only the other day my mother complained that they never have happy endings.  To be honest, I don’t know where they come from either, but that’s just how I write.  Some people start out with a plan, a ‘beginning, middle and end’, but I’m one of those folk whose hands practically take on a life of their own when I’m bashing out a story on a keyboard.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to the protagonist until there it is, on paper, a sticky end again.

And as far as verses go (no, still can’t bring myself to call them poems) well, they just turn up in my head as a rhymey line or two, and I knock them into some sort of shape from there.

So, basically, as well as leaving my mark, for posterity sake (my words will be around a lot longer than me), it reveals the individual in me, not only do my family, friends and followers get to know me better, I get to know myself too.

Therefore I conclude:

Writing is not a waste of my time. Yay!!

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A loo with a view

I must’ve been in many, many, rooms over the course of my life, so when I was presented with this challenge, for writing 101, I thought ‘easy peasy’.  Problem is, my mind just went straight back to rooms which held bitter memories; the gaudy hotel room where I argued horribly with my daughter on the last day, blighting forever the memories of an otherwise perfect holiday. My nan’s cosy bedsitting room, the room where she had a devastating stroke which she ultimately died from. The living room where I sat, fingers in ears, to block out the noise from our horrendous neighbours. It gets worse, but I won’t bore you.

So I consciously turned my mind to happier times and places. I could write about our newly decorated sitting room, whose huge French windows look out across our, currently, lush green garden.  This year, the summer has been perfect – lots of sun, and lots of rain, so the flowers are plentiful, the vegetables are abundant, and the grass is green (though to be honest, it’s probably more moss and weeds than actual grass). The birds flit from tree to tree settling on the bird table in between, and I can see the red and blue striped hammock, strung between the apple and the pear tree, rocking gently in the breeze.

That seemed a bit of a cop out though. It’s just what I can see right now. No, to properly meet the demands of the challenge, I need to use the colours of my memory.

Now, I know I keep harping on about toilets.  So I suppose I shouldn’t go there, but yep, that’s where I’m going.

I think you’ll agree that toilets don’t usually have views.  It’s not the first thing you think about when you think about a loo.  They’re often windowless, or if they do have windows, they’re mercifully glazed in opaque glass.

The one I’m thinking of had a window alright.  A huge picture window.  It wasn’t glazed either.  Nope, just open to the elements.

It was in Goa, on a spice plantation.  It was a very hot, humid day in a very jungly plantation.  We’d had the tour, seen lots of things growing on trees, bushes, under trees etc.  We’d seen a man climbing barefoot up a towering palm tree to collect coconuts. And we’d been shown how to eat our yummy lunch, properly, with our fingers out of a banana leaf.  It had been a lovely, and interesting morning, but sooner or later the inevitable happened.  I needed a wee.

I think it’s fair to say that some of the public toilets in India can be a bit dodgy. Very dodgy. I’m pretty blasé about it these days and go if I have to.

‘hmm… you gonna risk it?’ asked my husband as we were pointed in the direction of a small thatched building up a flight of rickety looking steps.

‘you go first mum, see what it’s like’ said my slightly less adventurous daughters.

‘Ok, bursting!’ I said. I was getting a bit knee knockingly desperate.

The little building turned out to house just one toilet, surprisingly a ‘western’ one, which was situated in the middle of the left hand wall as you entered.  On the right hand wall was a hole in the dirt floor besides which there was a pail of water with a coconut shell complete with handle that you could use as a scoop, so that you could flush the loo and wash your hands.

The back wall was non-existent.

This took me by surprise a tad, as, underneath my shorts and tee shirt I was wearing a swimming costume, which I naturally had to strip right off to be able to ‘errmm… do my thing.

Frankly, I could have stayed there all day.  Set on a  high ledge, the loo overlooked a large pond, nearly a lake in fact, covered almost completely in huge white water lillies. The pond was surrounded by different varieties of palms, plants with man-sized leaves,  and hanging pink and purple flowers that I didn’t know the names of.  Birds were swooping about catching insects just above the water. It was quite the most delightful view I think I have ever come across.

Sitting there, on the loo, naked, caressed by a cooling breeze and staring out across that wonderland, which looked as if it had been created by some Disney cartoonist, felt very surreal.  I’m pretty sure no-one could see me, but there was a queue forming outside, so I couldn’t linger for too long.  However, the memory of that place remains with me as the finest, and most surprising loo I’ve visted…….so far!

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Let me introduce myself….

Well hello there.  Second challenge of writing 101 is to introduce myself. It’s proving trickier than I thought it might be.  Introducing myself.  Should be dead easy.  Do I want people to actually know who I am though? Is it enough to know I live in Nottinghamshire, England, and that age-wise I’m no spring chicken, but have actually never quite grown up? That as well as writing, I like music, travel, eating, wine, gadgets,yoga, flowers, fish, dogs, walking, reading, photography, watching movies, sleeping, …..(I could go on…) and that my family mean more than the world to me?

Do I want to write down on paper (well not paper exactly) what my blog is about?  Do I know the answer to that?

Well not really.  I started my blog a couple of years ago when I left my job.  I’d already been writing bits and bobs for a good long while, and had completed a creative writing course with the Open University.  I’d enjoyed it, and wanted to write more, maybe even publish stuff.  Anyhoo, started the blog to get me writing, concentrate the mind a bit.  And, to a point, it has.

I haven’t published any of my stories on the blog (I use it more for venting my spleen), but recently took the brave step (for me ‘cos frankly I’m more Pam Ayres than Betjeman) of posting some of my poems that had already been well received in the PoetrySoup community.  Also, almost due to pure laziness, I have started posting some of my photographs.  It’s quicker and easier than having to think of something to write especially when time is tight.  Besides, I’m rather proud of some of them.

So, whilst I try to post regularly, I can’t honestly say I have any particular purpose or theme.  I hope what I write is vaguely entertaining, and people can identify with at least some of it, but I realise that my writing needs to be brought back into focus, and with any luck writing 101 might help me achieve that.

Oh yes, and I want followers, lots more followers.  And people to comment.  It can get a bit lonely posting all this stuff and still not being noticed. Anyway, it’s amazing to know that my words are out there potentially reaching people from all over the world. I’m going in the right direction, let’s hope this new set of challenges will prove even more successful.

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Freewriting for writing 101

Ok, this may not make much sense. It’s a bit of freewriting I’ve done as the first exercise in writing 101. See what you think!
‘Twenty minutes seems like a bloomin’ long time to freewrite. I used to do a lot of it during my creative writing course and found it really helpful. I remember they told you not to use punctuation..hmmm gone wrong with that already here, and to just type a stream of consciousness. Dreams seem to be a stream of unconsciousness the mind just travels randomly and weirdly to where it wants without any input from me. Often scary dreams, uncomfortable dreams that live on with me throughout my day. They also said don’t correct mistakes..gone wrong with that too. I’ve made a few mistakes as I’ve been typing, but not many. I’m good and fast at typing. Did it a lot when I was working, in fact I learnt to touch type at school and its been a useful skill since the explosion of pcs. Mind you, when I learnt it was all big ‘ol typewriters, not even electric, that you used to have to thump the keys hard to get a dodgy smudgy letter from. Sometimes letters arrive at my house that are smudgy from the rain. It rains a lot here. Not raining now though. In fact theres not a lot of weather this morning just dull greyness, it’s not even that cold. Autumn approaches. Did you know there’s Christmassy things already in the shops here. September. September in the rain. That’s a song I remember from years back. I like music. I downloaded George Ezra’s new album on Saturday. My dad was a big fan of music. He used to stand in front of our fireplace conducting orchestra’s on the radio. He was a bit barmy. We didn’t get on all that famously I’m afraid to say. Bit of a temper on him, though never violent with me or mum, but hit the wall a few times and his verbal tirades where something to behold. Not sure whether they’ve scarred me for life I think I remember him being more arty than cross generally speaking. Gosh this is turning into a bloody counselling session. I certainly didn’t want that to happen I wanted to write of wine and roses and pretty things. Sunshine and laughter and nice people singing. My writing is never like that though. Always turns out dark and dismal. Usually violence and murders in my stories. People who are nice on the surface but turn out to be psychos. Hmm wonder where that came from? Hehee… this is a counselling session. I wonder how much longer I’ve got left. I type fast so it could be another ten/fifteen minutes yet…who knows..doesn’t time fly when your enjoying yourself. Time is relative its so much slower when you’re waiting for the clock hands to click on to five so you can go home after a busy day, than it is when your playing games with your children. Watching tv shows can either slow or speed up time too depending on whether you are enjoying them or not. We watched a lengthy Chinese film on Saturday evening, can’t remember the title, but there was a lot, a lot, of fighting, and I couldn’t tell who was who it was just one grey blur of people with swords, it seemed to go on forever, and yet the programme I chose to watch, which made me laugh, was over in a flash. I guess that could be that the film was three hours long and my programme was just half hour, but you know what I mean. Journeys out to holidays, even long haul ones, go a lot quicker than coming home. Goodness me how long journeys can drag. It takes just and hour and fifty minutes to get to London by train from my house, but oh’ that journey can feel like a lifetime when you are on a smelly, overcrowded train sitting next to someone who had their music playing just loud enough to you cant actually hear what it is but you can hear that thrumming beat. Enough to be really annoying, but not bad enough for you to actually complain. Or the people who are sitting getting really drunk around the same table as you. I hate sitting round those tables. Often four people forced to look in every direction but each other for the entirety of the journey, or as I once was, stuck with three others who were sharing a bottle of champagne. They could have offered me some couldn’t they. Although champagne on a train could be a little sickmaking I would think. I don’t usually eat or drink if I can help it. Apart from anything, if you drink too much you are forced to use the revolting loos. I used a loo on a train in India. It was a squat one. That was a challenge I can tell you, but at least you don’t have to touch anything. I could write a book on loos around the world, have been in all sorts. Good and bad, very very bad. Also sad. Some of the loos in China were pretty horrid, but I tell myself I only had to use them the once, some of the villagers (in a particular place) had to use it the whole time. That’s one thing travelling helps with, finding your place in the world, alerting you to other people’s circumstances, reminding you that you are one of the fortunate ones. In fact, I view travel as an education. We took our daughters to India when they were about thirteen. They learned much about different cultures….’

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Rebooting my blog

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed a bit of a change to my blog this last week or two. You see, I had a ‘moment’ a couple of weeks ago when I was feeling a bit lonely, a bit unloved and unwanted.  I wasn’t getting many visitors, no comments, no activity.  Apparently not even good enough to include advertising. I felt left out.

Not the first time in my life.  I was always one of those kids.  The left out ones.  The odd-bod, the loner whether I wanted to be or not.  As I got older, I found meetings and conferences uncomfortable, feeling as if I was an imposter, not good enough to hold my own. Not clever enough to hold a conversation with all those important, intelligent folk. And that exactly sums up how I was feeling about blogging. Now, my usual response would be to give up –

‘Face it, you’re not good enough, you’ve given it a shot and failed, might as well find something else to do with your time’

But if being part of this on-line community has taught me anything, its that well, anything goes.  Your blog is your own, who really cares if anyone reads it, as long as you enjoy writing, posting, sharing.  So I decided to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and start shoving things on here pretty much for my own amusement.

My ‘ditties’ for instance (still can’t bring myself to call them poems – seems pretentious).  I’ve been posting them in the ‘poetrysoup’ community for some time, but always blushingly. Posting them on my blog seemed scary, as if I’m inviting criticism and ridicule. However, on one of my braver days I went for it, and hey, d’ya know what…they’ve got likes…lots of likes.  It’s great!

Likewise, with the photos. I’ve got a pretty good camera, and I really love taking photos and have thousands knocking around. Some of them are ropey, some of them seem quite good to me (fair enough, I’ve an untrained eye..) I’d never call myself a photographer, but, you know, we’ve travelled quite a lot and, well, why not share them I thought.  And yes, they’ve got likes too. Gosh, I’m on a roll…

I started my blog pretty much as a journal type thing, a diary documenting what I’ve found to do with my life since retirement, and up until now I felt I should stick to that formula.  But I’ve found diversifying is a real treat, and eye-opener.  I’ve found lots of other poets and poetry blogs that I hadn’t come across before, and some wonderful photography sites that I can learn from. I’m starting to write a bit about each photograph I post – blimey, you never know, maybe it’ll become a travelog!

I can post a picture or poem much quicker than I can write an article, so I’m able to keep the whole thing more active. And, through necessity, I’m learning a lot more about utilising the tools available to make my site look and behave better. Best of all, I’m getting a lot more visitors to my site (still not enough…come on you slackers..) and the number of followers is going up daily (yay! Hellooo and hugs to you all…)

I’ve got lots more ideas, and things to share, and I’m still learning, so over time, I expect the blog to morph some more. It’s all a bit of an adventure then, and thinking of something to post has stopped being a chore and has become exciting and fulfilling again.