Old bloggers never die, they simply write the last post

I was feeling nostalgic about blogging this morning. I think it's autumn that does it. I often feel nostalgic in autumn. I was reflecting on how big a part of my life blogging was when I started in 2007, how intense it felt, how much fun I had. I was thinking how much I miss it, and how I've often thought I would love to carry on writing in some other forum but haven't found the right thing (or even looked very hard).

I also confess to a feeling of failure. My blogging world seems littered with bloggers who have gone on to do great things. Great writing things. They've written novels, or columns for websites of world-respected newpapers, they've continued journalist or writing careers, they run websites that mean they and their family travel the world having lovely holidays, they appear on tv and radio. Me? Not so much. What happened to me?

In my defence... and here followed a list of stuff about my life that I chopped out, because yes, I have a busy life, but that's life, and the point is in the final sentence which is... But I often have moments when I lament to myself that I'm not writing, and I feel like I'm making excuses.

I started doing "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, getting another blogger to do it with me (always good to be accountable to someone). We didn't even last a week. I have vaguely researched local writing groups, but have never been brave enough to put my joining toe in the water. I've kept this blog ticking over, a slow drip that has almost dried up. Though frequently I do still think of ideas for posts, and craft them in my head. Only yesterday, shopping in Morrisons, I was mentally penning a piece on why sweetcorn tins are sold in shrink-wrapped packs of three, when everything else is sold in packs of two or four, and whether perhaps the person behind the decision had middle child syndrome (things in threes, you see), a working hypothesis which is rather borne out by the Green Giant marketing schtick. If that doesn't speak of sibling envy and an inferiority complex, I don't know what does.

Anyway, where was I? Finding excuses for why I haven't gone anywhere with writing. I mean, I was runner-up for a couple of awards at one point, for heaven's sake. Blogging, for me, changed significantly when it all got social media-ised. It's not possible (I don't think) to run a very successful blog these days, unless you're joined up with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else might come along. That means it's all a lot more time-consuming, and (here's the nub) you can't be anonymous. I found my writing feet, and flourished, when I could do so secretly behind a computer screen. Thinking back, there is so much that I just couldn't have written, if it hadn't been not only that I was anonymous, but that the whole blogging world was largely anonymous, or at least that it all started out that way. (Remember the boob cake?)  I can't get that back, and I'm not sure how to find the freedom that I felt, without it. Though I still feel like I'm making excuses.

So this is what I propose. To remember that it's not a competition. That it doesn't matter what other people have or haven't done from their blogging platforms. That it's not a question of success and failure. That, actually, writing for the sake of writing is ok, even if doesn't go anywhere. And not being anonymous is ok. It makes things different, but not wrong. Just different. So, I will promise myself to write a little each week. I will investigate the group of Blogging Nostalgiks that my old china Expat Mum has told me about. I will investigate another group of "Writers Over 40" that I came across on Britmums recently (though I would have qualified a decade ago, but they're probably flexible on the upper end of the age bracket). Baby steps, I know, but if I'm to get back into writing, I've got to start somewhere. Because I don't want any post to be my last post.

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