10 Tips for Blogging With Soul

It's a new year. Hello!

One of my recent newsletters covered the topic of blogging advice, and it received such a positive response from readers that I wanted to share it here to kick off 2013.

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Almost exactly one year ago, I was fighting off a cookie craving by standing in the hallway with a book of poetry in my hands. Eat This Poem was born just hours later, so it's only fitting that I'm in a reflective state of mind as 2012 comes to a close.

When a friend suggested I start a blog in 2008, I laughed it off. Only after we discussed it more did I realize that a blog would solve a very critical problem in my life: I needed a creative outlet. I had always been interested in writing and photography, and had been teaching myself to cook for the past five years. I didn't see what an opportunity it was at the time, but I realized much later that this was a space to find my voice. I also resisted starting a Twitter account, but have now made genuine, real life friendships because of it. What a world we live in!

I've given a lot of thought to blogging, what it means to me, and the opportunities its provided, but have rarely written about it. Almost five years in, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the final authority on blogging, but I have learned a few things along the way that I offer to you here.

10 Tips for Blogging with Soul

1. Blogs are planted like seeds in the ground, so start where you are. The blog you have now will grow and change in ways you might not be able to imagine in two or three years from now. You'll be a better writer or cook or artist in six months or a year. Don't let this stop you from beginning.

2. Write, create, and dream for yourself first. It's crucial you don't lose this ability when starting a blog.

"Cutting Thyme" by Linda Parsons Marion + Fried Eggs with Herb Oil

After some time away, it always takes a day or so to reestablish myself in the kitchen. Although the refrigerator is usually lacking some ingredient I need or crave, the thought of trekking to the store minutes after unpacking never feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Let it wait until tomorrow.

What follows the arrival, the mail sorting, the laundry starting, the opening windows to let some fresh air in, and the dog walking, is the question of what to eat. Having decided against going to the store, and tired of eating out, I'm left with a few choices that can be made from the pantry, plus anything else that survived our week away in the refrigerator.

"Blueberry" by Diane Lockward + Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

We have little choice in the matter when it comes to food memories; they choose us. Of what we do remember from childhood, inconsequential details rise up from our subconscious when the nerves are triggered, whether we're prepared or not.

When there are blueberries, I think of Christmas morning. Before my brother and I would arrive bleary-eyed and still in our pajamas to the living room, my mom had baked blueberry and poppy seed muffins. I also think of my grandmother. When I took a food writing workshop with Dianne Jacob earlier this year, a writing exercise focused on one object we could see from our chair. I chose blueberries, and they became the color of my grandmother's eyes as I remembered her in the kitchen, making goat's milk ice cream on a hot summer day.

This is what I wrote.

"Two blueberries lean together on a white napkin. They are the eyes of my grandmother, piercing me from the doorway in her small kitchen, gesturing that the ice cream is ready. Icy, freshly churned in the wooden bucket, we eat it together on the porch at dusk, and in the first, sloppy bite, is summer's entirety. The long season sloshing around in my stomach, like a caged bird longing to be free."