I'm winding down for a few weeks of summer rest and recuperation. I think this is so important. Not only for your own creativity, allowing your mind to switch off, wander, allowing sparks of imagination to come out of nowhere, but also mentally. It's not possible to just keep going all of the time. And I've learnt that the hard way.
But before I take some time away I wanted to talk about blogging. It's following on from my last two posts, really, where I spoke about writing what you want to write, not worrying about 'niching down' and ignoring the experts who are telling you to do one thing with your blog when your heart is telling you to go another way. (Why I'm no longer 'niching' my blog and No more 'niching': The feedback)
So many of you said thank you for writing this. I mean, I know you don't need permission from me to write what you want to write, but it's always encouraging when you know others are feeling the same, right? I know I was heartily relieved that many of you felt the same.
So, with this in mind I'd love it if you shared a link to your blog in the comments below. Maybe you could share the blog post where you felt freed to write what you want to write. A turning point for you. Or a post where you felt you were truly you.
As well as your own blog, share a link to another blog you enjoy. One that inspires you in some way either with their content or because they write from the heart.
This is absolutely for selfish reasons, obviously. I feel I've neglected reading blogs in the last year or so. But with social media going the way it is, algorithms and what not, it would be nice to re-build my blog reading list. I've even downloaded the Feedly app on my iPad in preparedness for all of your blogs.
It would be great to have lots of blogs to read over the summer break.
So, I'll start. This post of mine, Working Girl, is the first one where I started to realise what I wanted to write about, before I went off on a 'niching tangent'.
And a blog I'd like to share is wanderluce.com. She has just started a podcast called What She Said, which I adore. It's about blogging and about making money through blogging and freelancing and so on. But Lucy talks about it with her interviewees in a relaxed but inspiring way. In a way that doesn't involve 'niching' (although episode three makes an interesting point about niches) but by being yourself.
Now it's your turn. Share away, please do!