The versatility of blogging

A brand new year filled with potential. I just love new beginnings, and what better way to begin 2012 than to thank this community of bloggers who have made me so welcome since I started blogging late last year. I published my first blog post just 4 months ago – September 4th to be exact – and once I started, the ideas for new posts just kept coming. This is my 38th post on this blog. In October I created a second blog, Where’s My Backpack, to chronicle my travel adventures – and have racked up a further 35 posts there. Who’d have thought I’d have so much to write about?

I am put in mind of a quote I once read about writing: “Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then you have to ask them to leave.” – Anonymous. It obviously came from a time before WordPress, where a writer can revel in the quirky combination of solitude and community at the same time.

I have established a routine of sorts. After publishing whatever blog post I have been working on and responding to comments, I do the rounds, visiting an ever-increasing number of fellow bloggers to see what they’ve been writing about, and have been delighted to see that quite a few people have started following my blogs – some follow both, which is fun, as quite often my posts are related – my post on here about Jungle butterflies came from the same visit to Guatemala where I wrote about trekking through the jungle at night in Tikal on my travel blog; the Deer Me post from my trip to Ireland sits alongside my travel post about visiting one of my favourite dramatic landscapes of all time, The Featherbeds.

Fog over the Featherbeds

Sunset over Tikal

One month into my blogging adventures, Juanita from juanitasphotobox.com nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award, and this week I received another nomination from Vlad and Johna at windagainstcurrent.com – these are two of my go-to blogs. Juanita takes some lovely photographs; Vlad and Johna kayak around the New York waterways and take wonderful photographs of their journeys – and they are a perfect illustration of the community I am talking about – we’ve gone to the same places on different days and compared our photographic results here in this forum. As part of the acceptance protocol I am supposed to share some random things about myself. In no particular order:

1. I try not to take myself, or anyone else, too seriously. If you can’t have a laugh, what’s the point?

2. Grape-flavoured things don’t taste anything like real grapes to me.

3. Samuel Beckett is my favourite playwright.

sock

4. Dogs rule.

5. I have a tendency to wear loud socks.

6. I have called many places in many countries home.

7. My New Year’s resolution is to see the Northern Lights.

  

Now it is my turn to pass on the VBA to some of my favourite bloggers. Charles at Mostly Bright Ideas has already received one, so I can’t nominate him, but check out his blog, you are guaranteed a good time. My first two chosen blogs also appear on Vlad and Johna’s list, but as they haven’t accepted their nominations yet, I figure they are still available to be nominated.

1. Indulge – Travel, Adventure & New Experiences. I just love Lesley’s joie de vivre and her writing style and adventures will keep you reading for hours.

2. Out Walking the Dog. Melissa captures something special in every post she publishes. Her most recent post, The Waiting Dogs of NYC, just about broke my heart.

3. The Naturalist’s Miscellany. This is a fantastic site, combining stunning photos and poetically educational prose. I can’t stop reading.

4. Earth Stone Station. Dohn alternates his time between New Mexico and Hawaii, and always has something fascinating to share. Check out this post to learn how to make Christmas Farolitos.

5. Galen Leeds Photography. I can’t say enough about Galen’s kayaking photos – visit his blog and let the photography speak for itself. My favourite posts are his Anatomy of a Photo series, in which he breaks down the photographic process.

6. my.travel.map. A fascinating travel blog. This post was rightly featured in FreshlyPressed.

7. The Hostel Cookbook. A fun blog with great ideas for good food on the road so you never have to resort to fast food again. Hurrah.

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