Tag: blogging

Harder Than I Thought (BEDA)

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Blogging itself is something that I find quite natural. Typing out my thoughts and feelings is something that I find quite simple. My problem can sometimes be when I get a bit of writer’s block, and I struggle to find anything to say. And when that happens, it can be hard to get back into the rhythm of  creating regularly.

That is where BEDA can be a challenge. Keeping myself motivated can be hard, particularly being motivated enough to post every day. I have found it hard this weekend because it has been my birthday weekend, and I have been super busy. You will notice, that I have kind of ‘copped out’ and posted some pictures, because it saved time. But looking at it now, I think that the photos help break the monotony from the written posts. Although I may not have the time, I like that I am still motivated enough to post something. Which is great.

Is there anyone else out there blogging every day this month? How are you finding the challenge of updating every day?

Saying Nothing

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes it’s hard to find something to say. There are thoughts flying around in your head, but nothing you want to share outloud.  In a world where every inch of life is shared on the Internet, how do you make the decision on what is important enough to ‘make the cut’ onto Facebook or Tumblr? What thoughts are important enough to be made public knowledge? 

Personally, I know that my brain doesn’t stop, and my thoughts can become quite a mess to muddle through at times. And as a person who likes to write about their feelings, it can become particularly annoying to know what is good content and what is just rubbish. I know that a lot of what I talk about on here may seem like rubbish to many, but it is therapeutic. It helps me to carry on with my day-to-day life, I can focus easier when all the bumpf is out of my head. 

But that’s it, what I share, the bumpf, is just thoughts and musing that I have. I don’t really like being to honest about actual details of my life online, because it’s private. And because when it gets down to the details, it usually involves other people. And that’s the thing about sharing details, sometimes they aren’t just yours to share. But your thoughts, they belong to you. You formulated them at some point, and they, unlike actual life details, wholly belong to you. So, I find it easier to share thoughts. I write them down, then I can select what I want to write down. That way, my blogs and social media aren’t swamped with the ‘poor me’ that usually takes up my mind.

I think a lot of people, particularly on Facebook, share every little detail. And whilst seeing tidbits of people’s life is cool, i don’t need to see arguments with the neighbour down the road because they pissed you off the other day. Too many people have huge family fall outs because of rubbish someone posts on Facebook. I just don’t understand why anyone wants to display such information online. Maybe it’s because I have always used social media to help myself personally, not to gossip or start fights. And I do think there is a distinction, although some might not. 

Gadget Girl

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I never used to bother about technology at all when I was younger. It may have something to do with the fact that other than Sega Vs. Nintendo, not a lot of people I grew up with was interested in it. We had a PC at home that never gained an internet connection for it’s entire lifespan. It was used for typing school things and playing Theme Hospital. People also didn’t really have mobile phones, not till I was reaching the end of my school years. Even then, the most exciting things were making ringtones or playing Snake on a Nokia 3330. The internet was accessible at school or at the local library, and even then, I wasn’t much interested.

It wasn’t till I found myself in Glasgow, being quite the loner, that I started a blog on livejournal, and I began to get involved with the internet. I started talking to people, who understood, people who are still friends with me many years later. As I have got older, I have found that I have become rather reliant on technology. Like, if I don’t have my smartphone with me, I feel lost. Which sounds very sad, and probably should make me really depressed. But, it doesn’t. And here’s why.

For years through my adolescence I struggled to find out who I was. I just seemed to follow other people, and never really spoke up for myself. Yes, I had my own interests, but they never seemed that important. I was really scared of being alone, and became quite anxious, and kept a lot of my thoughts and feelings to myself. Which, made any anxiety worse. And it developed into me really, really hating myself. I thought that I was a horrible person, a thought that has stayed with me since, no matter how silly I know it is. What helped me step away from hating myself so much, was the internet. I found forums and blogs where I could be myself, without fear of the very few people around me leaving. I slowly became more confident when I realised that I wasn’t alone in how I felt, there were other people struggling.

I think that finding this solace in the online world has been something that has stuck with me. If there is something that frustrates me I’ll tweet or write a blog about it. I’ll express it in a way that makes me feel better. I can message people from anxiety forums when I feel a panic attack coming on. It helps me cope with stuff around me. Particularly when I have reached out to people in my offline life, they have been critical of my depression or anxiety, which is something that I can’t help. If someone is rude to you online, you can always block them. That gives me control that I don’t have in general life, and it calms me down. Maybe it shouldn’t be like that, but it is. The internet is a calming little assistant that I have with me constantly thanks to my phone. And considering I work full time, have a social life and function ‘normally’, I think that it’s great. All these wee devices help me feel like a normal person, and considering I haven’t felt like that since I was 13/14, I feel it is a good thing.

If technology allows a person to feel free and enjoy the things that make them happy, I just don’t get how it can be bad. But, I am an adult. Though, I can’t help how much easier my High School years would be if I was so connected as I am now. If I could ask anonymous resources about how I felt, and chatted to people who were ‘like me’. I maybe would have been more in control of how my brain works. I guess there is no point wishing things could be different. Life is what it is, and technology has helped me a lot.

Reasons

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Why do people blog? I have explained many times on here, that I blog for personal reasons. I do it to sort out my mind, and help me feel confident about how I feel. And over the years, it has helped a lot with a lot of personal issues I have had, particularly with my depression. I felt that I couldn’t speak about anything, because it was a negative thing to impose on other people. So I blogged, where it was like speaking outloud, and it helped me. For many periods over the last several years, blogging has been the thing which held me together.

It is strange for me to see something, that I view so personally, seen as a career move for so many people. We live in an age where the Internet and content creation are becoming genuine career paths. There are books and magazines telling people how to start a blog and make it profitable. It paints a very simple picture, write about trendy things, get views, make money. But it isn’t that easy, particularly if you are blogging for the soul purpose of making money. If you don’t believe in what you are writing, you aren’t going to make a connection and you will get none of the precious views you seek.

I just don’t get it. This blog is more about documentation and aiding creativity more than anything else. And that’s the way I’ll always see it. It’s always nice if what I say connects with someone, but it doesn’t drive me. The feeling of achievement I have when I have got something off my mind, and into a blog post, is what drives me. It’s a good feeling, and I have to make the most of those. My brain likes to ignore the positivity, so if I find something that makes me feel good, I will keep at it.

Returner Returns

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I am sorry there have been no posts in the last week. I have been ill with a horrible virus, which has taken my appetite, whilst covering me head to toe with a rather attractive rash. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been to focus on anything bar my itchy skin. The few days where I was able to thing productively, I couldn’t look at a computer or phone screen for 5 minutes before my head started thumping. So, nothing has been done at all, which is something that gets me really depressed.

I hate it. I like feel I need a sense of purpose for me to be happy. Which may seem silly, but I can’t really help it. I know that one of the easiest things to settle my mind and lift my mood is to feel like I have achieved something. Which is why to-do lists litter my day-to-day life, so that I can actually push myself forwards through every day. It stops me from becoming overwhelmed by things. And when I had no way to even figure out a to-do list because I had no energy, and so it added a feeling of failure on top of feeling like rubbish.

So, I have decided that a week off was the best thing for me do. Things happen, and commitments need to change as result. And for someone who relies on routine so much, this is a good thing. I haven’t once berated myself because I didn’t post last week. It may sound trivial, but that is something rather revolutionary for me. It doesn’t take much for me to start feeling bad, and it happens all the time. So, I am rather pleased that, for once, I made a conscious decision to not even think about it. There was nothing I could do about being ill, and not being able to sit in front of a computer. It is a thing that happened. The important thing is, that I am now feeling more normal. I am wanting to get back into routine again, and get life back to normal.

Hope anyone reading is doing okay, and that you have had better luck than I have recently.

Blog Your Feelings

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have spoken to quite a few people about the subject of writing a blog. Many people seem to struggle with the concept of writing about personal thoughts on a public forum, when you can’t express it to people in real life. And when I think about that, it does sound fairly strange. But I do have personal experience on why keeping a blog can help a person.

I have been struggling with various things over the last few years, things that are integral to who I am. And I feel that using this blog as a ‘think space’ helps me try and organise my thoughts. And it also is good to look back on, and see any progress that I have made. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like much, but it does help. Particularly when I have a bad depression period, when I struggle to focus on anything other than my failures. It helps to see that sometimes there are better times, and that I can get through it. I find it reassuring.

When I first started blogging, several years ago, I read a lot of other blogs. Blogs which actually provided me with hope and thoughts that I wasn’t as different as I felt. And if you are having problems in life, I think it helps to know that other folk experience similar things to you. And by sharing my own stories, maybe it can help someone else. And I think, as people, that what most folk want to do. Help those who have experienced similar issues to ourselves. And as we search through life to become a better version of ourselves it’s only natural to want to document it.

Or that’s what I think, anyway.

Documenting Life?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I love capturing what is happening around me. Whether it is drawing a picture, writing things down or taking a photo, it is important for me to document it. Always has been.

Some people seem to think that by documenting every little detail, you can miss out on the simple things in life. Which I guess can be true, in some ways. But I feel like it is more me appreciating the different ways of looking at every day. Even the boring days have their moments where I might think about something, or see something that interests me. I find it really releasing to write down or draw when I feel bad.

I think it is very important that if you decide to document your life using avenues, such as blogging, that you don’t share every little thing. It is important to share my thoughts and experiences rather than the details. Like, a lot of people I know, will gladly spend time with me, but don’t want their life shared with people they don’t know. And as well as that, a lot of people don’t feel comfortable seeing or reading things that are super personal. I don’t think that you need to share EVERYTHING to document things.

I guess I find it hard to explain how I can spend so much time sharing online, without telling absolutely everything to people. But it comes natural to me, I have so many ways to document how I feel and what I experience, I am in the habit of focusing on different things. Like this blog is general pondering, Livejournal is more of what I have been up to and Tumblr is just things I find funny or enjoy. And I like having that separation. I find that it helps me organise my mind better.

Expectations?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

When I tell people I like to blog a lot some have asked me about ‘outfits of the day’. I am gathering this is such a ‘hot topic’ because it seems like every female blogger talks about fashion and what they are wearing. Which is fine, but I feel that it has been expected for every female to run their blog like a fashion blog. That isn’t true, and shouldn’t be.

Everyone is different and if they run a blog, they should do so because it matters to them. There is no point trying to force something just because it is on trend. Yes, it could garner attention for a blog, but the chance of the blog being updated when it isn’t about something of interest is not likely. It sucks the fun right out of something, if someone is forced to talk about something they have no interest in.

Fashion is very popular for a reason, it is a good way to express yourself, I get it. I just have never focused on fashion. I dress to be comfortable, and that is pretty much jeans and a t-shirt. And I don’t see the big deal. I don’t wear make-up, I don’t buy much clothes, i don’t get my nails done… I just don’t subscribe to the ‘beauty lifestyle’. I never have. I have been a tomboy my whole life, and I don’t see that changing. I believe in substance over style. Not that there is anything wrong with being into fashion and things. I just express myself in different ways.

Set Topic

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have been on the internet a lot, just browsing various websites and blogs. It appears that there is this mass unappreciation of any audience on the internet. By tying a blog into a particular topic, you become part of a particular community, and you get more page views and subscribers as a result. If a particular movie or game gets a new release, and you frequently blog about it, you will get more views. And if you post frequently, you will get more visitors from being a part of that online community. This is something great, that communities and fandoms are helping to create and promote content amongst one another. You make friends on other websites, you get ‘shout outs’ and promotion to other people that share your interest.

And as a solo blogger, I look at these blogs in awe. I have random interests, that peak and wain every now and then, and what I post relates to that. I love writing what is on my mind, as I started blogging for me, and documenting my life. I really don’t want to heavily promote other people’s products, just because I have blocked myself into writing about certain things. I know, from my own experience, that I don’t have the momentum to stay on the same topic too long, as I have so many things rushing around in my brain. So it would be more likely if I had one thing to post about, that my blog would die. And that would be a very sad thing. To me.

I still get excited over every view my blog gets. That someone even thought to glance at what I have created. It may be one or two people, but it matters to me. Although, I did start this blog for myself, it is nice to think that someone likes what I write. Even if it is just one post. Maybe I like this style of blogging, because I don’t feel I am selling a product to someone. I mean, if I see a movie or hear an album I like, I may promote it, I just don’t feel I could do it constantly. And, call me crazy, but when a company starts giving you free products to review, it’s only so you can play sales person. There is no impartiality, which there needs to be in any review. Same when people get too involved with fan communities, you can pass the mark of being impartial, and it can impair judgement. It turns into how well you promote a thing, rather than appreciating that someone read what you created.

Those are just my thoughts, though.

Happy 5th birthday

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

3rd of May 2009 was the day I logged started an account on WordPress. A lot has happened in that 5 years and over 500 posts, and, in my usual form, I missed the actual day. So this is a belated celebration.

The original idea of this blog was to document my life as a graphic designer, something that kind of went a bit wrong. I still aspire to get paid for creating things one day, but if it ends up with being a hobby, I think I’m okay with it. I have also ended up loving writing a lot more than I did originally. I have documented a lot of my thoughts and feelings into posts, and as a result I have grown rather fond of this place.

I have been able to speak my mind, and say things in a way they matter to me. That is something that is rather liberating, and a luxury that not everyone can have. I am thankful to have a place where I can write my thoughts so freely. Blogging is something I’d advise every person to do, it’s a great way to release pressure.
It has helped me through a lot.