Moving swiftly on

It's been a while.

In the intervening time between this post and the last, I've been struggling with getting this blog underway. My problem has been having too much to say, trying to work out how to say it, and going through all the agonies that, I would imagine, most novice bloggers experience of convincing yourself that it just won't be good enough, and anyway, does anybody care?

Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to be a bit self-indulgent here, and try to work out what the problem has been. I think it will help me if I list the mini toolkit I need to get started and return to it if I feel that I'm slipping again. Also, just maybe, it may help someone else who has been going through the same stop-start as I've been. Here goes.

Professionally, I give advice on social media, including how to set up and use a blog - so there's an embarrassing contradiction - do as I say and not as I do! Here's brief list of some of the things that have got in my way with some notes on how to overcome them

My take on blogging, in no particular order:

• Writing should be a pleasure and not a chore, a way to express yourself, share what interests you, what you care about, what your enthusiasms are. If you love what you do, it'll shine through and be an enjoyable read.
• Write naturally. Imagine you're writing to a good friend who is always eager to hear about what you've been up to. Some of my favourite blogs are written this way - they make me feel as though they're talking directly to me, we've known each other forever, and that we're settling down for a chat and a cup of tea. Once I get going on my blog, I'll be introducing some of these to you in the hope you'll share my joy at reading them.
• Overcome the fear factor - we don't put up barriers when sitting down to write an email to a friend or a short update on Facebook, but writing a blog seems to put us in a place where we feel exposed, maybe a bit vulnerable or feeling anxious about how we come across, letting people you don't know into your life. There's no guarantee that these concerns will completely go away, but it's much more likely that they'll become more insignificant as time goes on.
• Think of a blog as a diary. The first blogs were often described as online journals, do you remember? The advantage of starting out this way is that it may be easier to keep a simple record of what's been happening, those stray thoughts, adding photographs and images that we like, notes on books read or journeys taken, silly things we've seen or overheard - all the things that make up our lives - and as a place to return to at some point in the future. Who kept a teenage diary? Those diaries may be embarrassing to read now, but they also let us revisit our younger selves and rediscover what was important to us then. No matter how good we think our memory is, re-reading something written at a particular moment in time, when it was fresh and new, is a genuine pleasure and a revelation!

What do you think? Anything here sounding familiar? Would your list be different? What's your advice for the world's biggest procrastinator?

So now, with these few pointers in mind, I'm going to start again. For a long, long time, I've actually been writing blog posts in my head as I go through the day, but failing miserably to type them up. This stops now!

It may all start off a bit messy while I find my feet, but I hope you'll stick with me. It would be really nice it you would keep me company.