As I write this post, it has been just over fifteen months since I last published a piece on my old blog. I bade farewell to my handful of readers, told my blog we were ‘going on a break’, and promised that I’d be back soon with fresh ideas and exciting new posts. As you can probably tell, I never felt ready to return.

I tried so hard to fit into the blogging community, writing about new nail varnish shades and beauty products as if I really knew what I was talking about (spoiler alert – I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to makeup!). I would spend nice meals with family and friends preoccupied with taking the perfect photo of my dish for the blog, and would take ages attempting to mimic the flawless flat-lays of bloggers I wanted to emulate.

But it just wasn’t….me.

The bloggers I follow, I follow for a reason – they all write about what makes them excited and it comes through in their work so brilliantly – be it fashion, beauty, travel, sex, or politics. That’s what makes them so readable, shareable and relatable.

I need to stop copying their content, and start adopting their attitude; to embrace who I am and what I can bring to the internet, rather than how I can fit in to the saturated blogging community.

I should be writing about what I want to write about, regardless of whether it’ll bring me hoardes of followers and readers. It shouldn’t be about the numbers – it should be about exercising my right to write – reviewing books I love, sharing carefully crafted creative pieces and discussing issues close to my heart when I feel brave enough. Whether I write twice a week, twice a month, or twice a year, I need my online space back, and I need to get writing again.

After all, how can I call myself a writer if I don’t even write?!

And so, I decided to start afresh, and create a new blog for myself. A clean digital slate, if you will.

Aside from the inner monologue I’ve been having with myself about the ‘meaning of blogging’ and my non-existent writing career for the last god-knows-how-long, my absence from blogging was also prompted by a few personal challenges over the last year or two.

I loved working on my old blog, but life took over, and I had to step away for a little while. I needed to give up writing and start looking after myself until things settled down and I had time to focus on what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. This, combined with my existential creative crisis, led to my fifteen month absence.

I have spent a long time trying to work out who I am, what I want out of life, and building up the courage to go out there and fathom these things out. I’m not there yet – in fact I feel like I’ve only been getting to my feet, preparing for the journey – but I like to think that by being brave enough to simply start putting my writing (and therefore myself) out there again, I’m taking my first little, all-important step.

This blog is my space. I chose this name because that’s what it’s about – my writing. It’s a place for me to share stories and ideas. I want to write about what excites me, inspires me and explore things that make me feel passionate and alive. Books, films, theatre, music, creative writing and thoughts, all in posts which will hopefully feed your brain as well as mine.

You can read more about this on the imaginatively-named ‘About’ page, so take a gander there if you need more convincing…but that just about sums it up. I wanted to write my first post to explain my absence and new attitude towards blogging, so here it is. ‘The obligatory intro piece’.

Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say – I’m so excited to finally be writing again, under my terms, about things that enrich my soul and that I want to share with the world. I hope you find a post or two which interests you along the way – and do pop over and say hi on social if you’re feeling friendly.

It’s good to be back.

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