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Meet the Post 40 Bloggers...

March 16, 2015

Saturday afternoon saw the inaugural Editorial Meeting of the Post 40 Bloggers team. After trying to arrange a meeting since before Christmas, we finally got 13 of us in one room together (well done Siobhan for your persistence!) and thank you to those from outside London who traveled to come.

I have to start by saying I felt a bit of a fraud even being there. These 11 other women and 1 man regularly write fantastic blogs and articles. I feel I’ve lost my blogging mojo recently and haven’t contributed for a few weeks. My plan to make a quiet entrance was ruined by the fact that I was 11th to arrive due to not being able to find the place that *I* had recommended we use! The bar maid actually had to come outside and wave at me (I was standing opposite!). By this point I was in need of a G&T and the bar man gleefully advised that I was the first person to order an alcoholic drink…

I was thwarted once more as I tried to sneak into the room as I was enveloped into a big hug by Mel. At least I started a trend though – everyone wanted a G&T then!

We all introduced ourselves by telling each other why we had come to blogging in the first instance and what Post40Bloggers meant to us.

I’m not sure what first brought me to blogging. Just a need to write I think. I’m under no illusion that I have a novel in me. I can come up with a good first chapter but then I lose interest, so I knew shorter pieces were the way I wanted to go. I think I am like Tattooed Mummy in that I started it as a kind of diary and it grew from there as somewhere to express my thoughts and opinions. If anyone bothered to read it that was a bonus. I now run two blogs, this and Love and Life in London, a 365 blog about my new life. The “365” brought many chuckles and caused Mel to ask what on earth I’d been thinking. I sometimes wonder myself but it lead to an interesting discussion about how far you can go when writing things which are very personal and taking care when writing other people’s stories

It was after I felt very disappointed with the Britmums Conference this year that Mel contacted me and proposed the idea of a forum for those of us over 40. Hoo-bloody-ray I thought. I’m niche-less – I’m not a “mummy blogger” (this term is bandied about in as many negative ways as it is positive) and I don’t run my blog to promote things (again, nothing wrong with that) rather, I want to know about and produce quality writing, connect with my peers and basically read about things that interest me. Mel had spotted a gap in the “market” as it were and we are setting out to fill that hole. We are about quality writing. Whilst all our contributors are over 40 it doesn’t mean we blog about things that only concern the over 40. The depth and breadth of our contributors is

vast with just the prerequisite that the author is over 40 and the writing is QUALITY.

Afra, Madmumof7, truly did play mum!

I came away from the meeting feeling inspired and with Mel having dispelled my notion that she only invited me along because we are friends. It was really great to put the Real Life personalities to the faces and blogs and know who that person is when you are communicating with them through the ether. I have been tasked with something I think is going to be exciting and innovative and and I’m really looking forward to editing. Blogging is my creative outlet to counter a dull job (not a dull life, I cannot claim to have one of those!) and I don’t want to become beholden to it. If I think I have nothing to say I want to be able to tell myself that I should only blog when I do have something to say, hence the 365 blog has recently become more a 1/52 blog! But in 100 days that 365 will be up and I would definitely like to continue writing under the Love and Life in London banner, so watch this space. Or that space. Or maybe even a different space. I’m thinking of going self hosted too, so maybe just watch ALL THE SPACE!

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