What’s it like?

I committed myself to writing and sharing it on this blog over 3 years ago. Sometimes it’s easy but other times it feels difficult to do. Sometimes I want to write about the world or social media and other times I want to share what I’ve learnt about myself through self-exploration. The personal posts come easy to me because I’m used to writing about myself. When I write about social media or the world, it’s fun because I’m sharing my ideas.

I’ve developed such soft spot for this writing space. I can show up, write and share it. I get to express myself through words and it’s so liberating. And then when you show up as a reader, sometimes it feels validating. It’s nice knowing that my words don’t simply get lost or drowned out. But I think most importantly, it’s good to know that there are people that get it. I’m not writing anything that is obscure or uncommon. The Daily Gemm is really just thoughts on life but in my own style which I’m still developing.

I recently wondered if I should give up this site to make space for other creative work. However, I realised that in my 10+ years of blogging this has been my favourite and best blog. Even when I’m struggling for what to write or the words aren’t quite coming together well, I still enjoy it.

I love to write, I’ve gotten and continue to get so much from it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. There’s really nothing like it.

Debunking myths about writers

There is this idea about writers, infact it applies to creatives in general. The idea is that our best work comes from a place of negative experience that serves as the poker that stokes our flames of creativity.

I enjoy writing about being a writer, mainly because it’s a title I struggle to attach to myself as a blogger. However, here in this space where all I do is write, I suppose I am a writer.

There are all these ideas about the way that writers should be and it’s strange that we cling to them, even the negative ones.

A common one is the idea of the tortured writer. For them the writing process is like some sort of possession where it takes over and you have no choice but to sit and write until you are possessed no more.

I used to carry the belief that the best work or at least the best of my own work had to come from a place of sadness, anger or frustration. It’s not that I looked for those things but I found myself happy to use experiences that brought on those emotions as opportunities to write something.

Then one day after catching up with a dear friend, I left with a full heart and inspiration to write. When I started to write, the words poured out with such great ease like they have so many times before. the only difference was that this time I was full of joy.

In that moment, I realised that I had debunked the myths that I had once believed about myself as a writer.

5 simple ways to improve your blog

Create cohesive content

You don’t have to write about a single topic but you don’t want your posst to feel like they belong to 5 different blogs.

Post consistently

It could be daily, weekly or monthly posts. Find a schdule that works for you and then stick to it.

Find your audience

You might use Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, word of mouth, LinkedIn or an event. You don’t need to spend endless hours marketing yourself but it is useful to have some idea of where to find the people your content is being made for.

Keep things simple

Make creating a blog post from start to finish as easy as possible, this could be through having content planning days, keeping a week or month ahead of schedule or having a blog post creation checklist so you always know exactly what you need to do.

Be yourself

This has nothing to do with sharing personal details of your life but instead it’s about not trying to hard to do something that doesn’t feel natural. Blogging is so much more enjoyable when you allow yourself to just be whether that is wrting about social media, reviewing designer purchases or documenting your journey to becoming a more mindful consumer.

Sister post to 5 reasons your blog might not be going as well as you’d hoped.

Why I’ll never run out of ideas

How do you come up with something to write about every single day?

Write about your interests and write about your experiences.

The origin of this blog was about picking a small moment of each day and writing about the lesson I took from it.

The small moment could be watching a film I loved as a child, going shopping, baking a cake, a conversation with a stranger or running for the bus.

When I decided I wanted to start daily blogging a little over 3 years ago, I knew I had to decide to write about something that felt easy for me. As much as I didn’t want to be someone who wrote about any and everything, I also knew that I didn’t want to be so niche that I felt restricted to the point where I’d struggle for what to write.

Even when I took a break from blogging, I was still writing, making notes and the ideas just kept flowing.

I think that’s a sign that I did well picking the content for my daily blog. In a recent post, I shared that in 2022, I’ll no longer be daily blogging but I have no doubt that the abundance of ideas I will keep flowing.

Catching up and clearing out

If you’ve been a regular reader for more than a few months, you’ll have noticed that I stopped blogging for about 6 weeks. There were a few posts here and there but it was far from my usual daily blogging.

However, over the past few days I’ve been getting my ducks in a row and I’m now back.

For the rest of this month, I intend to catch up on all the posts I’ve missed, so expect an overwhelming influx of content to be read at your own pace. The reason for this is I have about 10 completed posts, 100 half finished posts on WordPress and around 50 posts written elsewhere.

I quite like the idea of clearing out what I’ve written and putting out fresh content in the new year. I’ve finally decided to make some big changes with TDG as it goes into it’s third year which I’ll share more about later this month.

Despite not posting, I’ve still been writing and I have plenty to share. I also have big changes in my personal life which will result in more work and career related posts in the coming months.

I’m excited to be back posting again and look forward to sharing my words with you.

How to write 1001 blog posts

All you have to do is focus on each single post, one by one, day by day and suddenly you’ll hit 100, 250, 500, 1000 and then 1001.

If you miss a day or 2, you need to be willing to make it up to avoid falling behind so far that you’re unable to catch up. You have to be willing to commit and to write when it feels difficult, not just when it feels easy.

It’ll take a few months short of 3 years which seems like a long time but looking back, it’ll fly by.

If you think you might forget

Write it down.

Sometimes when preparing to have particular types of conversations we spend a lot of time gathering information and planning what we want to say.

We do this because we want to be prepared and we want things to run smoothly. Also, many of us have probably had situations where we got flustered or overwhelmed and forgot what we’d planned to say.

However, despite this, we sometimes don’t end up writing things down.

Maybe it feels silly and you’re worried about sounding rigid when you talk or appearing to be reading off some sort of script. And so when we have the conversation, even if it goes alright, once it’s over we realise their were things we forgot to say.

You don’t need to rely on remembering

If you have lots to get done and you find that you keep forgetting things a to do list might be a useful tool to start using.

You don’t have to rely on remembering everything, instead you can just write it all down, give yourself deadlines and figure out the things that matter most.

Then, you can start working through the list and keep going back to it until everything is done.

The alternative is to try rely on your memory, keep it all in your mind and risk forgetting to do something that needs to be done.

Why you’re not inspired to write

Often when it comes to periods where I’m less inspired to write, the problem has nothing to do with writing.

For example, if you’re busy and overwhelmed throughout the day, when it comes to sitting down to write in the evening it’s difficult. It’s not that you’re not inspired but instead that your mind is frazzled. You can’t focus because you’re distracted by everything else that is going on.

When you put pen to paper or fingers to keys, the words don’t flow because your mind isn’t clear. But it’s not writers block, your simply just blocked overall. And as soon as things are no longer overwhelming or you spend time to get yourself back to a more harmonious state, the writing starts to get easier again.

I wrote this for you

You know the feeling you get when you read something that resonates. You feel seen, you feel heard and you feel connected, often to a complete stranger.

But this person was able to form something that encapsulates a feeling or a moment from your life. It can often serve as a reminder that we’re not so different or as separate from each other as we sometimes end up believing.

If you can be moved by words written 200 years ago then our problems, challenges and experiences aren’t so unique to us, there are plenty of other people that know what it’s like. In my teenage years I liked to beelive that somehow the author knew that I’d need to read their words, almost as if they wrote them just for me. Of course that wasn’t the case but it was a nice thought at the time.

I’ve held on to that idea but allowed it to evolve a little. As someone who writes and shares their words, I never write with a particular person in mind but I know that people are often drawn to read about things they can relate to.

I’ve read great words that have moved me and so I hope to do the same. I guess it’s sort of like taking one and passing it on.

‘I wrote this for you because of what they wrote for me.’