I’m creating a 10th-anniversary copy of Smile Through It, the book I self-published back in 2012.1 It’s going to be fully revised and updated – there were a disappointing number of spelling and grammatical errors in the current version (that’ll teach me to be my own copy editor) that I’ve been keen to correct for a while, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and correct the errors while expanding some of the copy.
In the process, I’ve realised how helpful writing the old blog was to me as a place to work through things. It was a space to talk through what I was experiencing and try to explain my own feelings and reactions as I went.
When I rejigged my online presence at the start of the year and shift my blogging over here I wanted to create a space for comments and lessons about storytelling and how it can be applied to everyday life or used in the right situations for significant effect. There will be posts like that here going forward, but what I’ve realised is that this needs to also be the space for me to give voice to the thoughts and experiences of life, things I shouldn’t shy away from.
I’ve learned over the years that being open can really help people (including me), and while there are obviously things in my life that I’ll not be able to share, I still need (and want) to be able to talk about things that matter to me and why.
So that’s what to expect from here on. A return to a space that I’ve found to encourage me to share things that are happening and explore my own mind, as well as notes from the books I’m reading2 and tips and techniques of storytelling. It’ll be something of a smörgåsbord of content, but that’s because that’s who I am as a writer and creator and that shouldn’t be hidden behind some half-hearted attempt at ‘branding’ myself as something specific. I hope you’ll read on.