A week ago I met up with two friends, Sacha and Helen, in London. Both of them are authors – Sacha is absolutely killing it in the indie author world and Helen’s book has just been released across the UK with One More Chapter, part of Harper Collins publishing – but we actually met through blogging nearly ten years ago. 

Back in 2014/2015 things were very different for all three of us, and even though we live in different parts of the UK we have been there and supported each other throughout every major life event along the way. They were both at my wedding, we went on holiday to Dubrovnik together, I have looked after Helen’s dog on several occasions while she went on holiday with her family, I went to Sacha’s leaving celebration when she quit the job she started to write full time, Sacha and I got tickets for Helen as a birthday present to the Silent Disco at The Natural History Museum, and Helen and I went and danced the night away under the blue whale skeleton (Sacha was unfortunately not able to go), Sacha randomly turned up on my doorstep in Birmingham as a surprise with her family when they had visited Cadbury World (although I was mortified as I was still in my jammies and was in the middle of organising something so there was stuff EVERYWHERE…)

You get the idea. 

Despite this, and the fact that we talk via text thread pretty much every single day, the last time we met up as a trio was five years ago. 

So when one of them was doing something at Comic Con in London, we arranged to meet up there as it tied in with work. 

And it was such a good day. We met in central London, went for lunch, I watched them go through half the books in Waterstones and talk about authors I’d never heard of, we laughed about all of the things we had done together and reminisced about how far we’d come and braved the INSANE crowds at the Excel.

One of the things we talked about was blogging. 

For all of us, starting a blog changed our lives. There’s no exaggeration here – starting a blog 1. Saved my mental health, 2. Allowed me to quit teaching and 3. Created a new path to develop a new career in social media management. It wasn’t planned, but I still think of it as one of the best decisions I have ever made.

And as we were talking, it made me think. As my workload has increased, my blogging life has become smaller. Years ago I once posted almost daily, now I’m lucky if I post once a month outside of theatre reviews. 

And I miss it. So much.

When I got home I started to clear out my phone as I had very little space left, and found hundreds of photos of places I have been and things I have done this year, and never shared on the blog. 

So as it’s #NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month), I want to at least try to get back into the habit of posting regularly. 

Brace yourselves for 30 days of random nonsense…