‘If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.’ – Maya Angelou

Where is the connection? This is the question. The question I am asking myself as I move forward in developing my writing. Tutorials would probably call it a niche. Let me start with the things. I am lots of things. A traveller, a woman, a friend, a wife, a mother, a lapsed midwife, a lapsed teacher, a hiking enthusiast, a novice cyclist, an activist … the list is long. I generally don’t subscribe to tutorials so I am also a rebel. I like to do things my own way. Or does that just make me stubborn!?! Or is this the clue – the signpost to the connection, the way forward.

I have always written for myself. I write as a way of moving forward, of making sense of where I am or of where I’ve been. Along my writing path, a path I took in my early 40s, people started reading and connecting with my words. Still I write for me, but if I truly only write for me I’d journal. Wouldn’t I? So, also, I write for you. Of course I do because I publish my prose.

But who are you? 

My most precious gift in writing, my connection, my clues!

You’re women (mostly). Some of you are partnered, some not. Some are mothers, many are not. Some are empty nesters, some are in the thick of the trenches. Some of you are hikers, not all of you. Some of you are activists, some quietly some actively. Some of you travel, some don’t. Some of you are vegetarians, some not. Some of you also write, take photos, paint, cook stuff, grow stuff or just generally make stuff! 

The thing I think we all have in common, our connection is that we are a bit WILD. A bit radical, a bit dreamy, a bit adventurous, a bit what else is in the world, a bit what is there to feel, learn, see, a lot strong, a lot fierce and a lot in love with not being ‘normal’. What even is normal? We are our own normal. 

Yes, we are the wild ones. And so I write for you. You are my niche, my people and you are the ones I seek to share my energy with. To be radical with. In this space and in my space away from the words. My style of writing, my ‘niche’ is fuelled by living. And so I won’t only be sharing my energy here with the wild ones, I’ll be keeping it wild in my every day life too. Because let’s face it, we’re all a lot more focussed post our corona isolation aren’t we!?!

Accepting what I am as opposed to pushing my boundaries? This has been an important distinction for me to ‘get’ in this process. For example I travel a lot and mostly with kids and I guess there’s a whole genre in the ‘how to’ travel with kids, it’s the obvious one for me. But the thing is I just don’t dig writing about it. It doesn’t spark my fire. It wouldn’t be pushing my boundaries to start writing about it just because I do it, just because I know it well and there are others already loving it, doing a great job of it. I can’t fit where I don’t.

It would be far more honest for me to accept it’s simply not my style and to push the boundaries in the genre I do dig. The one I live to feel! The one that feeds my soul. The one where I find my connection, where I meet you lot. The Wild Ones. The ones seeking the more of life because you simply can’t live without sparks and flashes of promise and a great love and appreciation of the story. And yes travel will be a big part of it and possibly also kids but the thread, the inspiration for me is the connection. So here’s to creating a body of work that is inspired and focussed from a connection to the wildness we need to feed. 

#writingstreak

#appreciatingmystyle

#knowingmyniche

#transformingthisspace