In Which She Accidentally Starts A New Blog

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As recently as a week ago I was 100% certain that I would be leaving the blogging world behind for good. Over the past six months blogging had stopped being fun and become something akin to a chore. I felt huge pressure to meet self-imposed deadlines and targets, had started to resent the amount of time I spent putting posts together, plus I couldn't for the life of me figure out why people wanted to read my ramblings.

My old blog becoming irrevocably broken seemed like a sign of sorts, a chance to have a break from blogging and take stock. And I relished the time off. I loved not feeling like I have to sit down and write every day, no more getting frustrated with myself because I hadn't done an outfit post in months, or because I hadn't yet written a review of each of the 20 books I'd read in the past month. I was able to enjoy myself on days out without panicking about having enough good photographs for a post, able to dedicate some time to just living, instead of writing about living.

In fact, I've managed to do a lot of living in the past couple of months. Having got home from Cape Town, Thomas and I then visited Edinburgh (and I met up with Gwen, which turned out to be just like seeing an old friend, and was thus enormous fun). I finished the zine I'd been working on for two long years. I started volunteering with a project for transgender youth here in Leicester. I spent time getting my garden into shape and remembered how much I love gardening. And Thomas and I finally got ourselves organised regarding our wedding, set a date, and booked venues.

And yet...

Over the past few weeks I've had the urge to write again and, no matter how much I tried to pretend it was definitely possible to make 100 zines on 100 different topics, I had to admit that actually, it probably wasn't. So I started tinkering with Blogger and I remembered how much fun it can be.

So here I am. A fresh blog, a fresh start, and a new way of doing things. No putting pressure on myself to meet spurious deadlines. No fretting over everything being perfect. No trying to review every book I read or to write about every trip I take. No trying to keep to schedules or blogging for any other reason than because I want to. A more balanced and achievable approach. I hope you'll stick with me.