“Good
friends are those who care without hesitation, who remember without limitation,
and who love even without communication.”
Philippos
Syrigos
For Day Six of Mental Health Awareness Week, I’ve collaborated with one of my best-friend’s and fellow mental health Blogger: Martin Baker from Gum On My Shoe. I wanted to feature a piece with him to shed light on having each other, as an example of the blogging community. I will never be able to put into words just how much it means to me – how special it feels – to have someone in my life who truly understands one of the most important elements in my life (I’m NOT Disordered/blogging). So, we put together some questions and have each answered them, my answers are on his blog: www.gumonmyshoe.com and his are below…
1. How do you handle time management
and prioritisation when it comes to content creation?
I’m
pretty disciplined when it comes to my blogging. With a (self-imposed) weekly
schedule, that’s essential, really. I try to have at least a few posts finished
and lined up ahead of time but that’s not always possible. For a long time I’d
complete each post just in time for that week’s publishing deadline. Over the
years, I’ve tightened up my workflow which makes a bid difference. It means I
can move more or less smoothly from inspiration, to rough draft, to completed
draft, to adding and testing links and images, to proofreading, to scheduling,
to publication. I try and stay aware of upcoming events and awareness days so I
can write for those well in advance where possible. Aimee is a great help with
that!
2. What impact does blogging have on
your mental health, emotional wellbeing, thoughts, and feelings?
Writing
has always been an important part of my life. It’s how I explore and express
who I am. At this phase in my life, blogging is the main way I do that. It
gives me the opportunity to extend and integrate the conversations I have with
friends, my personal diary, things I’ve encountered online, and whatever else
is going on for me. In the past few years I’ve blogged about topics I’ve never
touched on before, such as my gender identity, toxic masculinity, alexithymia,
philosophy, and end of life planning. Working on a different topic each week
keeps me mentally alert and gives me something different to talk about with
friends so (hopefully) they don’t get bored! Their input and perspective often
sheds new light on my ideas and takes things in directions that might not have
occurred to me otherwise.
3. How do you feel about receiving
feedback, comments, and input from your readers? How do you handle negative
feedback or responses?
I’d
love to get more feedback and comments than I do. It would help me develop my
writing style further and also potentially focus the topics I write about to
better serve our readers. That said, the feedback I do get is almost
universally positive and affirming.
4. How much attention do you pay to
your blog statistics? What do they mean to you?
If I’m
honest, very little. My blog is hosted on Google’s Blogger platform, and I’m
aware the pageview and other statistics provided by Blogger are indicative at
best. I registered the blog with Google Analytics, but it’s a long time since I
even looked at those statistics. I’m more interested in relative numbers, for
example which posts are attracting more readers and attention than others. I
publish a list at the end of each month with the ten most-read posts in the
previous month (ie those with the highest number of pageviews) which gives
people a chance to see what’s most popular on our blog at that time. It’s also
interesting to see which posts have attracted the highest number of pageviews
over the lifetime of the blog. They’re not always the ones I might have
expected. Right now, the most read post ever on our blog is A Friend’s Guide to
Secrets, followed by The Box on the Shelf which describes one technique Fran
and I use to handle difficult issues and situations. Number three is a guest
article exploring bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder by renowned
author and coach Julie A. Fast.
5. Where do you find inspiration,
ideas, and motivation?
My
posts tend to be inspired by conversations with friends or things I’ve seen
online. If an idea comes to me, I jot it down on my phone so I don’t forget it.
Then if I’ve finished a piece and am wondering what to write about next, I look
through my notes. Another source of inspiration is the photo library website
Unsplash. It’s my first stop when I’m looking for the perfect image for a blog
post I’ve written, but I also get inspiration from the photos themselves. One
recent post — an open letter to Fran which was published in March — happened
that way and is one of my favourite posts ever. I’ve written about blogging and
image prompts before, and I sometimes read those articles over to remind myself
of my own ideas.
Motivation
is a harder one to answer. I’ve said previously that I write mainly because I’m
afraid to stop. I don’t know what I’d be or how I’d make sense of what happens
in my life if I didn’t write about it somehow. That includes blogging, but also
my diary which I’ve kept for over fifty years now. Fear isn’t necessarily the
healthiest motivator, but it seems to work for me.
6. What are your favourite moments and
achievements in your blogging?
I’m not
sure how to answer the achievements part of this question. I don’t have
specific aims or goals with the blog, so there aren’t any milestones I can
point to that have any great significance to me. On the other hand, every blog
post that goes up is an achievement. Every idea that makes it into an article.
Every conversation or experience that triggers a spark of inspiration. Finding
the perfect image, or title, or quotation, these are all achievements in their
way and bring their own reward.
As for
favourite moments ... as I mentioned, my posts are often inspired by
conversations with friends and I enjoy that moment of insight or excitement
when some idea presents itself to me to be explored. I’ll often pause a
conversation in order to scribble down what we’ve just said, so I won’t forget
it! On the other hand, the writing part itself is a personal, private thing,
and I enjoy that aspect of the process very much. Just about every piece I
publish was written at my favourite table in my favourite coffee shop,
including this one. The hours I spend there writing are where I feel most
myself.
7. What do you feel about blogging
collaborations, guest posts, and events?
I’ve
done very few collaborative posts other than with Aimee. I’m open to the idea,
but I’ve never really known how to go about arranging them. Guest posts are
different. I’m always keen to have guests sharing their work on our blog. It
brings a fresh perspective for our readers, as well as potentially expanding
our catchment. Events are fun to blog about. I’ve covered a range of events,
including a Time to Change event for Newcastle Mental Health Day, a Cats’
Protection fundraiser, a local history event in Durham, a TED Talk, the premier
of a local mental health film, and a mental health event in Cullercoats. I’m
always keen to do more.
8. How supported do you feel as a
blogger? What kind of support do you find most helpful, and why?
Gum on
My Shoe was founded as a platform for me and Fran to share our thoughts, ideas,
and experience regarding mental health and supportive friendships. In the early
days, Fran contributed a lot of the content and remains a vital part of the
process, not least because so many posts are inspired by our conversations and
the situations we live through as friends. That said, she’s not directly
involved in the writing or publishing process. I’d feel pretty much alone with
those aspects of it, if not for Aimee. It’s not overstating things to say that
without her friendship and support, I’d probably have given up on blogging by
now. Blogging is a huge part of both our lives and we often discuss our ideas
and approaches. Having someone who understands all the different aspects that
go into publishing articles to a schedule and maintaining a blog is a huge help
and encouragement. I know she feels the same way.
9. If you could give one piece of
advice to a budding blogger, what would it be?
This is
a tough question for me, because I’m aware how different people’s situations
and experience might be when they start blogging. Once you’ve chosen a blogging
platform, such as Blogger or Wordpress, I’d recommend learning the basics of
how to produce and publish your blog posts, but don’t get too hung up on the
details or on doing everything perfectly. Aimee and I both blog in the mental
health space and both use Blogger as a platform, but our workflows — the way we
actually put a blog post together — are very different. Write your first
article and publish it. Then another. Then another. Over time, you’ll find an
approach and a workflow that works for you. Mine has developed a lot over the
years.
10. We’ve each run our blogs for well
over ten years now. How has your blogging changed over the years, and how do
you see it changing in the future?
This is
a great final question! I mentioned how in the early days a lot of the content
we posted on Gum on My Shoe was written by Fran, whereas nowadays I author
almost everything that we publish, albeit with a great deal of input from Fran.
That’s one thing that has changed. Another is that over the years we’ve
broadened the scope of the blog. It remains focused on mental health and
supportive friendships, but we interpret that quite loosely to include a wide
range of topics and issues that affect us, either individually or as friends. I
also draw more on my own health, interests, and values now than I did when we
started out. That’s something that developed naturally as I became more
confident in sharing aspects of my life and situation. Fran and I are also keen
to explore how time — and age — affect our friendship and life experiences. I
recently wrote about what it feels like to be sixty-four years old, for
example, and we’ve written extensively on end of life planning. I see these
shifts continuing as we move forward with the blog, although it’s important to
both of us that we retain the primary focus on mental health and mutual
support. I’m interested to see where the journey takes us!