Yesterday was my five-year blogiversary — five years of writing about my stuff and communing with an amazing community of people from around the world. I didn’t know what I was entering into when i wrote that first post on my fledgling Blogger blog. It was Denise who convinced me to start — our friendship had blossomed after I’d left a comment on her blog and she wrote me back, international penpals who became real friends in the truest sense. I still have the email she sent me on March 23rd 2006 that opened with the fateful line: “Oh Susannah… I really think you should start a blog!”

After a couple of weeks of umming and ahhing, i finally decided on a name — Ink on my fingers — and wrote my first post on April 12th 2006; when i switched from Blogger to Typepad a year later, I lost all the comments from those first months, which is such a shame as I’d love to read them again. This blog gave me space to remember. It gave me a reason to pick up my camera again. It rekindled my love of poetry. It brought me friendships and support. And now here I am, blogging under my own name, running a creative biz online and penning books — and all of this came from being brave and posting some words on the internet for all to see. CRAZY!

Thank you for being here and reading my witterings — thank you for the comments you leave and the good vibes you send me, i really do feel them, sitting here in in my attic flat in Bath. When I was still deep in my bereavement, this was the place where I knew I could find some sanctuary. Whether you’ve been with me since the beginning, or have only recently found me (hello!) you guys helped me change my life, from grief and loss to light and hope. From the bottom of my stitched-back-together heart — thank you.

I’m still as passionate about blogging, and online community, as I was when I started, which is why my next project is Blogging from the Heart. I’ve been itching to get started on this but was stuck in the writing cave, so now i have a brief reprieve (until the book edits come back, that is) I’m jumping in feet first. Blogging from the Heart will be a guidebook to blogging sharing everything I know about writing with honesty and heart, how to create images that share your world and inspire, and bringing it all together on a blog. There’ll also be videos, writing prompts for blog posts and interviews with creatives who’ve inspire me along the way. I want this guidebook to be really fantastically useful and also really beautiful to look at too, something you can dip into to get inspired, ready to blaze your own blogging path.

There are already a ton of blogging books, blogs and courses out there, but I’ve yet to see anything on creative personal blogging – how to share your life and heart online as a way to express yourself creatively, dive deep and meet like-minded friends along the way. I won’t be looking at how to make money from blogging, but if you have a biz and want to share more of yourself online with your customers, then this guidebook will definitely help with that. It’s about being honest and open, enjoying the writing process, recording your world with your camera and getting your creative juices flowing!

I have notes and plans coming out of my ears, so as I ease myself into another writing stint (I’m a glutton for punishment :) I wanted to ask you…

What would you like to know about personal blogging? What elements of your blog writing or photography do you struggle with? If you’re thinking about starting a blog, what would you like to know? If you could ask me one question about writing, photography or blogging, what would it be?

Leave a comment or drop me a line – thank you for your help! x

Over the last ten days a lot of people have asked me how it feels to have finished my book and each time I pull a face and say: scary. The truth is it feels awful to have finished my book because i can no longer indulge my fantasies of what it will be like when it’s written. The deed is now done! And I’ve had ten days to convince myself that I have, in fact, let myself down and written a load of crap.

I think it would be safe to assume that I am on a come-down. After channeling all my energy into the writing I’ve been feeling a bit lost. There’s so much I want to be getting on with, but i just feel so horribly un-anchored. I’m all adrift and the negative thoughts have been gathering around me, poking me in my sides and whispering in my ears.

This is not the first time I’ve had thoughts like this. During the months I was writing there were weekly sessions of me wondering what the hell i was doing — who’s going to want to read this shit? I’d think, as I retold a story or shared an insight. Who do you think you are to write a book, you faker?

The voices in my head are not always very kind.

Getting past the doubts was the first obstacle I had to overcome. At some point I had to give myself permission to actually write the thing, to suspend my disbelief for long enough to get the words down. There were afternoons when i probably wrote entire paragraphs with my eyes shut, lest i immediately delete all the words on the screen. Some chapters flowed out whole, a breeze to write; others were so dry and unformed, every single word was like pulling teeth, an absolute agony. It didn’t help that so much of the book covers such emotional ground for me.


I discovered that it is physically impossible to write anything worth reading during the days leading up to your period (the actual day of your period it’s best to stay in bed). On those days my brain was not functioning at all, and I found that blankness terrifying — it was as if someone had removed my hard drive and my head was completely empty. This feeling returned again and again, as I wrote myself into corners and couldn’t find a way out.

On the days when I thought it was game over, that I was never going to have another original thought in my head, I retreated into the visual — Pinterest was a life saver, as was Instagram. Photography has always been my friend, and when the words were missing, images helped to get my brain moving in different directions.

I learned that it’s essential to let yourself write the shitty first draft, as Anne Lamott calls it — people, this was SO HARD. When I write I tend to edit as i go, circling back into my writing again and again, inching forward slowly. But there were times when I had to let that go and just get the words down, when I needed something in front of me to be able to edit — you can’t edit a blank page.

When I was working as a journalist I was often commissioned to write articles of about 2,000 – 3,000 words max; lately I write 500 word posts. Some days all i type are 140 character tweets. So to be faced with a 50,000 word book to write (which isn’t even that long in book terms — most novels are 80,000+ words) was daunting. In theory I knew I could do it; in practice I discovered you need a huge amount of stamina to complete such a prolonged stretch of writing — mentally and physically; in the last months I was taking anti-inflammatories to ease the RSI in my hands and wrists. I had days when I loathed the writing process, when i wanted to email my editor and give her the advance back. But there were other days when the words danced to the right tune, and i had moments of true inspiration that reassured me I was on the right track. I lived for those moments.



The biggest lesson of all was also the most obvious: You need to allow yourself enough time to write a book. I mean, how obvious is that? But it had to be learned in real time, not just in theory. My publisher gave me more than enough time to complete this project, but it took me months to find my way into the writing. You know how a dog will shuffle around looking for the best position before flopping down on the floor to sleep? I shuffled around for months, making notes, trying to work out the book’s structure, but putting off the actual sustained writing practice out of fear and intimidation — there was always other work I had to do. I was right to map out the chapters as carefully as I did, but I now know most of that was me stalling — what i should have done was just flop down on the floor and start where I was. You always dream of the day you’ll have the luxury of time to write your magnum opus, as you sharpen your quill and look out across the moors for inspiration…

It does not happen like that.

What actually happens is you shit your pants for five solid months as you scramble to find a bunch of words that don’t make you throw up while you obsessively check your Google Reader and Twitter, convinced everyone else in the world is more accomplished and better than you.

…or maybe that was just me.

Whatever it was, I’m sharing all of these thoughts so i have something to refer back to when i begin the next one. Because, just like mamas forget the agony of childbirth and do it all again, I absolutely will do, now I know what to do… and what not to do.

This week I took some time out to test the latest colour film from the Impossible Project, and as you can see, it’s not too shabby! Their PX680 film is designed for 600 and 680 cameras, but I tested it in my SX-70 and it responded very much like the original Polaroid 600 film. The guys at TIP say the white speckles will be gone in the final version of the film, although i personally find them rather charming. The colours are SO MUCH better than the previous films they’ve produced. The team have made such incredible progress in just a year, it makes me excited to see where they’ll be in 2012 when our Polaroid book comes out — can you imagine it? You’ll be able to buy the book AND invest in a couple of packs of really fantastic TIP film to practice with! Jen, Amanda and I have been toying with the idea of leading a Polaroid retreat next year — would anyone be interested in joining us for that? We’d hold it somewhere lovely (thinking USA or Morocco) and we’d share how we take our shots and practice the art of Polaroid photography — it’ll be like the book coming to life before your very eyes. ;)

Can you believe it?
We had such a wonderful birthday weekend for our little man, it was really hard coming home this morning.
REALLY hard.
We don’t call him Wobble anymore — he really is Noah, now. He’s becoming his own little man.
He loves broccoli and carrots, and feeding himself, and he especially loves his Nana.
Yesterday morning we were playing in the living room when he took his first steps to me, and i swear, my heart exploded with pride, right there, as I sat on the floor and he collapsed into my lap, laughing his head off.
These are the best days.
The best.