When the Thrill of Blogging is Gone

I have tried and failed at writing several blogs. Sometimes I get bored. Sometimes other things get in the way. A mentor recently told me that I would find writing larger pieces a lot easier if I kept up a blog and recorded my daily thoughts. Practice, she said, would help me write better. I had a strong sense that this person who had kindly taken an interest in all of my unfinished blogs, was right.

There was the very first blog, started a very long time ago which was a disaster. My burnt fingers can't go into too much detail, but it involved a lot of ranting about a situation between me and another person. Unfortunately for me, this fell into his hands and he was less than impressed. This was enough to put me off blogging for a long time.

I started the first Jumping Through Hoops blog last year to give me a break from studying and to write about something other than history. However, the said studying along with working and travel planning got a bit too much and the blog fell into neglect.

Following that was my most successful attempt to date: my travel blog to record my trip around South East Asia, which was designed to be the basis of a future fictional piece. However, the blogging came to a very swift end due to unreliable internet connections and the allure of $1 margaritas in Saigon which rendered me a drunken mess for four days.

So I am going to have another attempt at blogging. It may not be good, interesting or coherent, but it will be useful to me. If others enjoy reading it, that's great too. I decided to keep the name 'Jumping Through Hoops', as that is exactly what I'm still doing, as I'm sure will become clear.

As well as general day-to-day blogging here, I am also planning to use the next few weeks to pull together all of the notes from the Hanoi - Bangkok adventure and turn them into something readable and, hopefully, publishable.

For the record, I still have the post-travel blues, so hopefully writing will help with those. I just miss being on the road, on the big adventure. Crossing the traffic, thunderstorms and lock-ins in Hanoi; kayaking and swimming in Ha Long Bay; dress fittings and beach parties in Hoi An; tunneling with Mr Ass, cinemas and extreme drunkenness in Saigon; learning about the past and finally finding Marmite in Phnom Penh; Angkor, cooking classes and the wonderful hospitality of Anna and Smiley in Siem Reap; and reunions, rainstorms and great Thai food in Bangkok.

But more than anything, my travel buddies. The ones who shared all of that. LY xx