Two years ago I started a blog to follow my gardening progress.
what an adventure that has been! I have enjoyed following inspiring gardeners all around the world and received and given advice, and ultimately become a better gardener.
Some bloggers put little tabs on the top of their blog and have sections. well maybe I am not smart enough to figure out how to do that, but I kinda liked the idea of having a separate blog for my recipes.
africanaussie-recipes was born.
It is sooo useful to point someone to the blog when they want a recipe of yours. Or to have your whole recipe box available at the touch of a button when you are travelling and someone says could you make milk tart tonight. You always think you know those recipes off my heart, but it is nice just to be able to double check. I have lots of recipes in draft, but only post them once I have tried them and confirmed they are really tried and tested. I don't have photos because for some reason my photos of food never come out looking as tasty as they should.
One thing led to another and pretty soon I had a craft blog.
I notice that it is not chock a block full of things, (I am getting ready to take a silk painting course so watch this space!) and this became more noticeable to me when I was browsing though the list of goals I had set myself for the year in Google docs. If you haven't used Google docs it is worth looking at... anyway procrastination is one of my downfalls. I noticed on my goals I had written "do more writing". My half yearly comment on that was "no status!" A year ago I was so excited about starting a writing course, - gung ho - I did my assignments each week, then I left on holiday.... the course finished and I had not completed my assignments.
I began to think about my gardening blog, and how much inspiration and support I have got from my readers, and from reading other blogs.
Mmmm I wondered ..... should I put my writing out there for all the world to see? could I do that? should I do that? If nothing else it might egg me on to finish the novel. I also have the other "book " that I have been lugging around now for 13 years (is it really that long since I stepped off the boat?). "Come sail with me" is a compilation of stories, recipes and memories as we sailed around the world. Parts of it were sold as stories to fund the voyage, but it has never been published as a whole.
"The Fragile Threads of Life" is the novel I got half way through and then stopped. I will post a weekly update and hopefully that will spur me on. I will have a deadline. If you have questions, comments or advice please let me know. I am tough - I already have a pile of rejection slips filed away!
Maybe if I do this I will become a better writer. Maybe this will bring more writers into the open and we can all support each other.
so.... a new blog, with stories, no photos, just my words.
Welcome!
You can e-mail me at vemvaan@gmail.com