Happy 2014!

As it has been requested from many quarters, one of my goals this year is to keep this blog running in some semblance of order and frequency.

In order to do so, I felt like I would first share some of my anxieties about blogging regularly, and then this year, you can watch me work through them (and hopefully share input to help me!)

In no particular order, these have been some of my reasons for not blogging regularly:

 - uncertainty about what I want this blog to be (i.e., travel, personal, or a higgledy-piggledy mixture?)

 - uncertainty about how the internet will respond if I do write any personal opinions or posts of a more reflective nature (what? It's a zoo out there, and my skin is none too thick, sometimes)

 - complete inability and/or unwillingness to schedule posts (if I promise you a post once a week, then I'll struggle with the deadline. Then I won't know what to do once I've missed the deadline. So I don't make myself a deadline. But then I don't post. Because I don't have a deadline. See the deadly spiral? It's a trap that my lazy brain has laid for itself, at this point.)

 - fear that if I comment too frankly on my experiences as an expat in another country and culture, someone will sooner or later accuse me of insensitivity (it's mightily hard for me to air my frank and real opinions without sounding high-and-mighty, sometimes)

- consciousness that I don't have enough photos and formatting skills and technical know-how to make this blog an elegant, visually attractive corner of the internet (yeah, okay - this one is sheer personal and creative pride)

 - uncertainty of how much of my academic work should or should not become blog-fodder (too many issues to go into)

 - fear that I may run out of interesting things to blog about (I mean, having nothing to say never stopped me from talking, but we can all dream....)

These and other concerns have hampered me, and allowed me to talk myself out of writing, even though I know that some of y'all would deeply appreciate hearing from me reliably. (Thanks for every encouragement, by the way! They may fall on fearful or lazy ears, but they don't fall on totally deaf ones.)

My primary concern right now lies with whether or not I should put myself on a schedule. I would really appreciate commentary, here, so, dear readers:

If you have ever had a blog (or column! or similar), how did you approach it? Knowing that I am a procrastinator, and that tight schedules often kill my sense of creativity, flexibility, and fun, do any of you have any advice? Perhaps I could commit to a post or two a week, but not to any specific day or topic? I'm looking for a reasonably encouraging post structure that gives me room to play around and write as inspiration strikes, rather than saying, "nah, I'm bored. I don't have anything to say on Wednesday this week," and therefore refusing to write. I have graduate essays for the non-negotiable deadlines thing.

I've had a couple of ideas for series of posts as well. I could go back and detail my days in London as a tourist. I could do a loose summary of my experiences so far in Leicester. I could do photo-posts where I lead you on a little tour of somewhere I've been. I could talk about cookies/biscuits!

Or, I could depart from a solid travel/study-abroad format to sometimes just share opinion topics, and eventually perhaps craft ideas or other thoughts and experiences. I am a bit afraid of this, largely because I often object to the tone of excessive generalization and unassailable expertise at life often adopted by other twenty-somethings online who, face it, know nothing much about anything. But I could try it.

So, I'm asking. If you read my blog here at all, I'd love to see a comment, whether here, as a personal private message on Facebook, or sent to the email associated with this blog, pearlsonmyshoes@gmail.com.

Please talk to me! And we'll try to see what I can set up for 2014.

Happy New Year!!