It's funny how writing can heal. How it can comfort. When I was walking my dog yesterday I was thinking about this blog. It is such a simple thing. A place to record my thoughts, the seasons, my chicken stories, recipes, books I've read. A journal, but online. Opening my heart to people I've never met, yet understand me. Jotting words down. Sentences and paragraphs. Trying to make sense of the world.
The lyrics to Bridge Over Troubled Water appeared in my mind.
When life becomes a bit disordered, through both good news and bad, when I throw myself enthusiastically into new projects, only to crash some time later as the adrenalin, inevitably, stops pumping. It is this blog I turn to.
Blogs have lost their appeal over the years. I started my original one some ten years ago. It was a place to chat to other writers; we'd visit each other's blogs to see how their writing had gone that day. Then facebook came along and we moved there. Then twitter, and we moved there.
The only thing is, businesses followed. People put links on (including myself). Chatting became less. Those water cooler moments where we talk through our abysmal word counts or stressing because we're at that 'everything is rubbish' point don't really exist anymore. We use twitter as a place to get our news, as a way to read essays or articles of people we follow.
And that's fine. Only there isn't an alternative for those water cooler chats. For unpicking our thoughts.
Yet my blog is still here for me. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's a place where I can immerse myself in words, where I can experiment with descriptions, get lost with recording my experiences of nature. Where I read through what I've just written and see a rhythm of sorts. A rhythm that needs a bit of tinkering so I play around and add, take away. Test and taste.
To anyone out there who aspires to be a writer, an author, I cannot recommend starting a blog enough.It is where you can experiment. Get better. Hone your craft.
A place to turn to when you're weary, feeling small.