Inspiration

Today I was lacking in inspiration. Last Friday I could feel I was getting ill. I had a sore throat, I felt tired and a bit weak and wobbly. Saturday morning I felt a bit better so had a bit of a day of it. I went for a run, visited Liverpool for the day with my parents sister and stayed up late with friends. Sunday I wasn't feeling too great, yesterday worse, and today not good at all. I'm off work today, keeping hydrated and dosing up on paracetamol with the hope that with rest I'll be ok for work tomorrow.  I have no energy and even getting of the sofa is an effort. Therefore, you can imagine that I really didn't have the inspiration to blog. 

However, this all changed when I was having a little flick through my phone and came across an interview by Kate of A Playful Day of Kat Molesworth's (of Housewife Confidential), and one half of the Kat and Kat behind Blogtacular. Kat was talking about creativity in blogging, the benefits of practice and just going for it! I know I'm not the best writer (when I was writing up my PhD my boss said on a number of occasions that I wrote like an undergraduate- good job I am not easily offended and that I'm not writing about science here). I also know I'm not the best photographer (but I do try pretty hard so I guess that counts for something). The beauty of this however is that there is scope for improvement, and Kat's interview has inspired me to sit down and write this today, when otherwise I would have been moping and feeling sorry for myself (and watching back-to-back episodes of Escape to the Country and Homes under the Hammer). 

Kat made another point that really resonated with me, which is to surround yourself with creative people. I said in a recent post that I really felt that 'creativity breeds creativity' and I maintain this still. When surrounded by creative people (and I don't just mean crocheters, but people who enjoy making things of any kind, people who are into DIY, design, books and art, brewing, sewing, painting, writing, photography......etc) I find my creative juices flowing and I get itching to pick up my hook and work up a design, or write a blog post such as now! What I *should* really do is harness this creativity to write-up my patterns, and advertise my pieces for sale, but I feel that unless I make any drastic changes to my lifestyle I will forever be that girl who flits from one project to the next, to whatever takes my fancy, usually leaving behind me an aftermath of chaos. I'm not going to apologise for this as it's me down to a T, but is probably why I really struggled to make SallyStrawberry a full-time business when I was unemployed last year. 

Anyhow, what I'm getting at is that I feel that I need to be immersed in creativity to be creative myself. Living here in Wales during the week I feel quite isolated from my creative communities back in Manchester and Norwich. Whilst I still hope to set up a craft group in my local area (you can visit this post for a little list of current goals and ideas), maybe podcasts are the way forward for the time-being.  

You can listen to Kat's interview here, and I strongly recommend you do! This has also made me more keen to go to Blogtacular this year where there will be creativity in bounds!

Other snippets I have enjoyed listening to recently include the podcasts by Claire of The Girl Means Business. These are full of useful information but also short enough to satisfy my short attention span!

Do you have any podcasts to recommend to me? Maybe you make your own? Is so I would lvoe to hear from you.

Back to the daytime TV, my brain feels like it may burst....

SSxx