I’ve had trouble writing blog posts. This isn’t shocking or new to anyone, I’ve talked about it a handful of times promising to do better, to be more regular on here. Hell, I used to write blog post every Monday religiously, was able to keep this site updated with my own thoughts. But then the pandemic happened, then I was working from, then the world seemed to hold it’s breath and all my careful routines changed. I couldn’t think of anything to write, offered a few posts but was too sad most of the time to actually think of anything personal to write about, couldn’t really think of anything to write that wouldn’t be depressing or sad. My last personal post was written in May 2021. So I started writing book reviews again, just until I became inspired again, or that’s what I told myself.
This blog has in many ways become a book review site, which was not my intention. Good things have come out of it of course, being contacted by different companies and authors to review books. It’s something I’d hoped to achieve in high school, and I’ve enjoyed getting to read and review indie books, getting to interview one of my favourites authors and a new author who’s work I’d like to explore more of. But the point of this site has always been to act as a portfolio of sorts, a way for people to read my writing and provide opportunities from there. And it has, obviously, but not in the way I intended.
I don’t know how to get back to who I used to be, to get this site to what it was. I’ve changed the layout and who knows if that’s helped at all, though I think it brings the focus more to my writing than my book reviews which is something. And that’s not to say I’m going to stop writing book reviews, it will definitely still be a very active part of my blog, only that I don’t know how to get back to the topics I used to write about, how to find the words for those posts.
I don’t know where my voice went.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, with restrictions being lifted, with the world deciding it’s time to return back to normal. Only normal doesn’t exist, not like it used too. Not with a pandemic still raging, not with a war in Ukraine, we are so far from normal but so many want to stick their heads in the sand, look at the shadows on the wall and convince themselves that everything is back to the way it was. As if people haven’t died, as if people aren’t still dying.
So here’s to trying, I guess. Trying to find my old footsteps, my old habits, my old routines. Trying to find the things that brought me comfort, trying to adapt to a world that wants to forget when I can’t forget, when so much of me is full of worry.
Trying to learn who I am now, after everything.
Sarah O'Connor 