Guest Blogger – Tracey Sargent from Quiet Paws

Today I would like to introduce you to my blogging friend and writer Tracey Sargent from ‘Quiet Paws … treading softly on the world’ blog.

Tracey Sargent

Tracey’s blog is a calm, peaceful corner of the world filled with little gems to take the edge off this frantic, chaotic and often angry world we live in. She sometimes provides virtual coffee and cake, which is a real treat 😉

Follow this link to stopover at her place.

She lives in my old home town of Brisbane and ‘likes dreaming of almost impossible things, imagining delicious possibilities and weaving words into a tapestry of fiction. The rest of my time is spent laughing, shopping for vintage clothes (especially dresses), befriending lovely people, cuddling my dog, capturing photos, baking sweets, watching movies, spending time with a good book, and loving my husband.’

We have a lot in common, include a penchant for the inimitable Nicolas Cage, a love of vintage clothes, woodland animals, photography, marine biology and dogs 😉

I asked Tracey the usual questions and here is her response:

Why do you blog?

In the same way that my blog has morphed and evolved over the years, I think the reasons why I blog have also changed.

When I started my blog back in 2006, it was just a place for me to share my writing and random thoughts. Because I tend to over-think and over-analyse my writing (and pretty much everything else), I used blogging as a way to loosen up the words and just write a bit more ‘in the moment’. I also found that blogging was a really great way to introduce a different type of discipline into my creative life, by encouraging me to commit to a regular blogging frequency.

I then dabbled in focussing more on reviews of ‘events’ like movies, live performances, music and books … now that I look back on that period of time, I think I was struggling with not having a defined theme for my blog. I was pretty much writing about anything and everything (and still do). While I still sometimes have my ups and downs with that lack of clear definition, I’ve come to realise that my blog does in fact have a theme – it’s me! I’m the link that runs through each of my posts … at the time it felt like a major blogging crisis, but now it seems so obvious to me.

I’ve had ups and downs on the blog over the years, which has meant that I’ve sometimes struggled to find focus, been baffled by what to write next, and wondered why anyone would be interested in half the stuff I write about … but I’m pretty sure most bloggers face similar challenges. I’m starting to think that overcoming those issues is just a natural part of being a blogger. Nowadays I think I’m much better at recognising the low points and just working through them as best I can.

My latest major blogging transformation probably occurred towards the end of last year when I felt like I’d really hit my stride. I committed to blogging more frequently than I ever had before, and really started to proactively grow and engage with the wonderful community which had formed around my blog. I had fallen utterly and completely head over heels in love with blogging once more.

What do you like most about blogging?

Because there is so much to like about blogging, I had to think extra long and hard on this answer … otherwise I’d keep you reading here all day and night (and who’s got time for that?). So after much deliberation I’ve decided that what I like most basically comes down to two things – diversity and people.

Blogging in isolation is really no fun at all, and it kind of defeats the purpose of putting yourself and your creativity ‘out there’. I think the way to discover true joy from blogging is to open yourself up to the incredible community of bloggers – they are a constant source of inspiration, support and friendship. I suppose because my blog is a bit of a ‘mixed breed’, I similarly tend to seek out and find inspiration from a diverse mix of bloggers. I’m often surprised and delighted by the number of like-minded people that can be found in all manner of unexpected places. I don’t like being defined or constrained by any one label or theme, so I love cutting across those boundaries in the blogs that I read as well.

I feel very fortunate to have ‘met’ such wonderful people through my blog – some people I’ve known since I first started blogging all those years ago, while others I’ve come to know more recently (but for some, it feels like I’ve known them forever).

Blogging is such an important part of my life that it has become like second nature – I get frustrated when I don’t have enough time to post as often as I’d like or visit the blogs that I love to read.

Sometimes when talking to people in ‘the real world’ I forget that not everyone has a blog or understands the many and varied joys of blogging. They have NO idea how much fun they’re missing out on!

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Thanks Tracey 🙂