Why start a blog? Good question…one I have been asking myself as I gear up to go online. I have always wanted to write and have in bits and pieces, never seriously. I wanted to write a great novel and couldn't keep at it long enough and then just gave up. It kept niggling at me…you have to write, get your butt in gear, just do it. Then our daughter went to Kenya for 7 weeks and our oldest son created a blog for her to post a travel diary to share with family and friends, and the idea came that this is how I could start to write – in snippets, fits and starts, just let it all flow out.
It fits with my personality, a desire to create and a huge desire to purge. My home and my office is constantly being purged – I could have been a great nun in a monastery. Give me a bed, a table, chair and nothing else to clutter up my space. But the one place I haven't purged, that needs a good house cleaning is my mind. I am a headcase, my thoughts jumbled, overflowing, disorganized, all-consuming and energy sapping. I can see my blog as a great place to give away, recycle, dump and organize my mind. I can free up space, de-clutter and hopefully breathe without the “whirling dervishes” of my thoughts consuming me. At the same time I can have a creative outlet, let it go organic and grow into whatever all this thought wants to be.
I am ready. Now is the time to act, no longer try, just be. To start I have set up categories that I will post to, maybe they will stay, maybe not. Like a kitchen cupboard, you start off placing objects in cupboards & drawers thinking it will work best that way and then rearrange as you find it needs tweaking. Right now I have a General Eruptions of Thought/Opinions category that will be a catchall of musings. Free Ideas will be my space to give-away ideas I have had for novels, products, business ventures, etc. that I haven't used and don't see myself using. Why not give it away to someone who can do something with it?
Reading/Movies will track books/movies I have read/watched and any comments that I want to let out. Travel will be about the travel that I do or maybe want to do.
What does the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, have to do with my blog? My mom is of Icelandic descent and grew up in Gimli, Manitoba. I recently went on a trip with her, my 2 sisters and my 2 aunts to Iceland. The name for the blog came from that, a reference to my Icelandic roots and the power of the volcano to erupt and purge the lava from its core. My thoughts now have the vent it needs to flow out and become a part of the landscape…..