Just start, dammit!

I’ve always wanted to write.

When I was a kid and someone asked me the dreaded ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ question, my fall back was always ‘A famous author!’.

This always got pesky grown ups off my back. After all, nobody I ever spoke to was a published author so they weren’t in a position to offer sage advice. Usually it was something like, ‘well, you keep up with that English at school then!’ and they trot off to find another kid with a more reasonable future in mind.

It’s taken me a while to find this space, both physically on this platform and mentally. Because I always thought that being a writer would mean a sudden flash of inspiration and an amazing story would drop into my lap.

But — surprise, surprise! — it really doesn’t happen that way.

Writing is WORK. It’s HARD. It’s research and expertise and mad skills that I honestly didn’t believe I had. Plus (and this was the biggest thing) I just didn’t believe that I had the expertise to offer any insights.

See, after reading emails from writing gurus and blogging experts and people that make thousands a month from writing incredible content, one thing became clear.

You need to offer Value. You need to give people a Reason to spend their Valuable Time on what you write. You can just get online and blather away because nobody wants to read THAT.

So thought and pondered and spent years gazing at my navel and wondered what the hell I could write about. And I came up blank.

Sure, I’d raised four kids on my own and worked all my life and been through some stuff but hell, so has everyone! Everyone’s had experiences and challenges and issues. Everyone has had different ways of dealing what’s been thrown at them and come out the other side.

And that’s when it hit me.

Perhaps some of the solutions I’ve found could be used by someone in the same situation. Or maybe something I write could help someone get through a bad day. Sometimes I can be funny — maybe I could make someone laugh and lift their spirits, even if it’s just for a moment.

So here I am. I’ll share some of my stuff. I’d love it if you share some of yours. And maybe together we can find some answers, learn something new, have a few laughs and just hang out.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.