Hello everyone. I hope you are all well. I thought I’d do a little catch up here as a blog post. It seems a little odd as a) I haven’t done a non-video blog post for some time and b) I haven’t done a general, chatty one in months.
I think I got side-tracked by making videos on YouTube and I just forgot to write about what I want, when I want. Sorry about that.
But I’ve been thinking of coming back to my blog more in recent months. It was long before this worldwide pandemic began but having this time at home has heightened my desire to connect with you all and to just write. To not necessarily have a specific topic in mind before I begin - but to talk to you - my blog audience and share what’s going on in my life without thinking about those all important keywords.
One of the other reasons why I haven’t written more blog posts I think is because we had a change in lifestyle. I no longer have the chickens and the ducks - something I know many people followed me for - and I thought I didn’t have any lifestyle-type-stuff to write about now that they’re gone. I thought the chickens and the ducks were my USP. That I needed to discover a new one.
So I’ve been grappling a bit with what to use this blog for. I didn’t just want to use it as a way to share my videos - I wanted to write but the ‘about what?’ question was always hovering around my head like an annoying wasp.
I’m constantly learning, constantly evolving and in the last few months I’ve made some changes to my priorities. For a while my priority was my YouTube channel. For some time I created and uploaded between one and two videos a week. This was incredibly time consuming. Now I’m in the review stage of monetisation by YouTube I am keeping it steady at one video per week. I do enjoy the video-making side of things and it’s good to not be writing all the time. It gives me a different way of being creative.
So now my priority is back to my writing. This includes my essays on Patreon which I hope to self-publish later this year (you can become a patron if you’d like to and you’ll receive an essay once a month about creativity and the mental blocks I’ve come across throughout my writing and creative journey), my non-fiction book proposal which I intend to send out to literary agents and/or traditional publishers (although I haven’t completely dismissed self-publishing that, too) and my free weekly newsletter called Journal Notes. If you haven’t heard about my newsletter it is a mini-essay inspired by what I’ve been writing in my journal that week - relating to creativity, being online, mental blocks, writing and so on. I also share who or what has inspired me that week such as a podcast, video, book, article or blog post.
I’m also still writing my novel but it’s not my writing priority because, and I’m being honest here, I prefer non-fiction to fiction. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud! So I’d like to see where that can take me first.
I’ve made some small changes elsewhere in my creative life. I’ve changed the name of this blog from A Bookish Baker to Helen Redfern Writer. This is following the change of name on my Instagram account some time ago - possibly the beginning of 2019. I think A Bookish Baker now only exists as my twitter handle (which I rarely use). As I don’t tend to focus on books or baking specifically I think the change of name suits me so much more.
I’ve also changed the way I work and plan my work. This process of setting goals and working towards them with projects and tasks has been invaluable and enabled me to accomplish my YouTube goals. Because I can now see exactly what I’ve achieved this process also gives me so much confidence, I highly recommend it. You can find out more about it on my videos How to set Writing Goals, Projects and Tasks to get More Done in 2020 and How I Plan my Creative Projects and Tasks for the Month.
So, do I miss my chickens and ducks? I know a few of you have asked me that on Instagram. Well, I miss seeing them and hearing them. I miss their glorious yellow yolks. Fresh eggs every day was a real treat. I don’t miss trudging through the mud to lock them up or the worry or the heartbreak that inevitably comes. I love where I’m living now I don’t have any pressure to be outside and work. And when I do look outside I see the weather, the glorious sun, I see a chair to sit and have my morning coffee - I don’t see all the jobs I have to get done. It’s very restful.