Ship's Blog star date 2015.12.6

What is a blog?

Derivation: a shortened form of ‘web log’, an online journey or diary of the writers’ observations and experiences.

This week I went along to a workshop on ‘Blogging for Creatives’. It was run by the Federation of Entertainment Unions. Being a member of the union ‘Writers’ Guild of Great Britain‘, I have access to a range of great events that the FEU run which are aimed at all kinds of creative people – writers, musicians, actors and journalists.

I realise that I have actually been blogging for 6 years now as various personae on various websites which have eventually metamorphosed into rachelcochrane.com. So with all that ‘experience’ why bother to spend time at a workshop on blogging?

Great to catch up with workshop leader William Gallagher of the Blank Screen a guru in helping creative people to work effectively and efficiently.
Great to catch up with my friend and FEU rep Kate Willoughby, who is also the founder of Emily Matters which supports and advance genders equality especially in voting.
As much as I enjoyed seeing those fab people, giving them a hug and networking with all the other attendees, I was also there for the serious business of visiting what I do (i.e. blogging) afresh.

I’m a firm believer that whatever you do in your life, on occasions it’s important to step back and re-evaluate. I find that true for both writing and also running the business of being a writer – and blogging covers both of these things. The workshop not only updated us on how we can be more efficient in the process (William gave some great tips for this) but also how we can generate ideas for blogging. This made me think ‘Why do I blog?’ Am I just on a treadmill? Do I need to get off?

Sometime I feel like Captain Kirk guiding the Starship Enterprise, there’s a bewildering array of controls in front of me as the ship lurches from side to side. As part of the ideas generation in the workshop, I listed all the creative things going on in my life at the moment. This made me realise how privileged I am to be part of so many wonderful projects; no day is ever the same. I am excited to tell you about them, I can do this through blogging and I hope that you can become part of them too.

Read my latest blog post ‘Figureheads’ recc at the TVLB