I’ve fallen off the wagon again. I’ve really struggled to write here regularly now for several months. A few weeks ago (actually, it was only last week, but it seems like ages ago) I went to the Emerging Writers’ Festival Roadshow at the NSW Writers’ Centre and realised, in a session about blogging, why it might be that this blog has virtually fallen into disrepair. One of the panelists, Kathryn Elliot, was talking about how every now and then she needs to take some time away from her blog to work out exactly why she writes on it. I realised that, my previous post aside, I’ve not really done that.

What is this space for me? I know I don’t want to give it away, so why is that? Why is it important to me? What do I want to use it for?

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been asking myself some of these questions and have (thankfully) come up with some answers. I think I’ve been a little afraid of putting too much of myself into this space — something to do with privacy and boundaries, I suppose. I’m quite a private person (I think). I’m the type of person who spends lots of time one-on-one with her friends. I’m perfectly comfortable (these days) in crowded gatherings, but my preference is definitely for smaller ones. In a crowd I’m quiet; one-on-one I’m much more animated. And I guess, somehow, sharing a lot about myself here felt a little like being on display in a crowded room. Of course, that’s all in my head, since I’m sure that most people who read here are people I know and care about in real life (hello Mum and Dad), and those that aren’t are other bloggers with whom I’ve got a long standing blog friendship.

So I’m going to try to think of this space a little more like a small table at a cafe, across which I’m sharing tidbits with one or two others.

Pass the sugar, would you?

The other problem I have with this space is finding regularity. Ha. Actually, that’s a problem I have in my life. I’m an organised person, but I don’t work full-time, I only have a few regular work engagements, and everything else is sporadic or one-off projects. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I love working the way that I do. It comes in particularly handy when I’m sick with a weird heavy-and-tingly-limbed illness like I am this week; I can spend my sick time concentrating on quieter work like transcribing interviews and research reading.

But it does make it awfully difficult to find a routine. Yes, I get up at around the same time every day but Sunday, I have lunch at around the same time each day. Dinner too. But my work is so all over the place that I have no regularity to my writing (keep in mind the writing is why I kick-started this yoga teaching adventure in the first place). I’ve tried doing writing exercises in the morning, but my body and brain are loathe to do it. My mornings are my evenings, so to speak, since much of my teaching work is in the afternoon and evenings. Every part of me is telling me just to relax in the mornings. I don’t know. Maybe I should try starting my working day (at about 11am) with a creative writing exercise. Any thoughts?

Despite my lack of writing routine, I do have several writing projects on the go. One fiction, several non-fiction. A lot of my work on them at the moment seems to be going on in my head, rather than on paper, which I think is a legitimate workspace. But I am hoping they make the switch to pen-on-paper sooner rather than later.

Apologies for the long ramble. Hopefully some regularity in posting will mean I can avoid these kind of epic posts. On that note I’m off to work on some writing, and hopefully I’ll have something more positive to post soon(er rather than later).

If you’ve made it this far in this post, you deserve a treat. Check out the latest Do What You Love post over at Pacing the Panic Room. Now if I could just work out how to work for myself like this amazing lady does…