I needed an excuse to slow down and just stay home. After a crazy Summer of working weekends, packing my schedule, ‘taking on too much’ and pushing all creative projects aside, I needed this.
I haven’t been able to self-isolate 100% as I’m still working but the time between work has made me look closely at my home space. I have been working on my dream of creating an edible garden, rearranging, decluttering and finally, sit down with the niggle that is constantly in the back of my mind… to start a blog. Do I have an extraordinary life full of wisdom and adventure? Haha no, but I do need a creative outlet and if one person joins me as I explore, I’ll be stoked.
So this isn’t the first time I have started a blog. I thought I was rid of this urge but it has started to keep me up at night again. I don’t know why, but blog post ideas spring up in the my head all the time. In the shower, during a massage, just as I’m closing my eyes to sleep and almost always, half way through my yoga practice. So, in the time of what ‘lock-down’, the timing feels right to explore this recurring urge to write, create and share.
I have always been drawn to content creation. As early as primary school I would submit updates for the newsletters, illustrations for the cookbook and would chop up magazines to create my own collaged pages for my ‘perfect magazine’. In middle school, I jumped at the opportunity to put my ‘Desktop Publishing’ skills to use and organise the pages within the school’s end of year magazine.
When it came to university, after one year of Arts, I jumped to a Bachelor of Media and loved it. I couldn’t believe I was able to study the internet, blogs, movies and broadcast media. I created short films, learned to critically edit, created a radio segment and wrote feature articles. About mid-way through, the course changed and I was able to major in marketing. It was soon after, I obtained a role as a marketing assistant that began my marketing career path and I lost focus of media creation.
Since graduating, the digital landscape looks completely different. It’s fast-moving and ever-changing. Everyone is creating, and on so many platforms. When I started to travel, I started a travel blog (which I still occasionally visit to watch terribly cropped videos of me attempting to snowboard. Good times). In 2014 I created an ethical fashion blog and then in 2017 I created my first posts for A Life of Loves. In every case, I pivoted, chopped, changed and became overwhelmed and would give up. Having the background in marketing, I got caught up in the website design, post promotion strategies and branding. You can’t do any of that without the actual content, and I would go to hit ‘publish’, freak out and another blog post would sit in ‘Drafts’.
During these times of attempting to blog, I connected with some interesting and amazing people that I never would have otherwise. Like travelling did, it opened up my eyes a little and gave me insights into different lives, ways of thinking and communities. I’m hoping that once again, it can be a place to share the people, things, brands, place and more that I think are pretty awesome.
So this is a bit more stripped back than what I have curated in the past. I’m trying not too get too caught up in the design, colour schemes and imagery. Just focusing on one post a month and see how I go.
If you made it to the end, THANK YOU!