Well, it’s day one of my new blog and it already feels like quite an adventure. Apart from finding my way round the technicalities, the biggest strain has been finding a name for it! I tried all sorts of different names – some had already been taken, while others were derided by my family and friends for being “totally rubbish”. At long last I settled on “A Little Bit Like Me” and I’m already starting to feel quite comfortable with it.
Having decided that my blog won’t deal solely with one topic or fit neatly into any niche, I needed to think carefully about who I am writing for. Ultimately, the answer has to be people who might be a little bit like me in one way or another. Of course, you’re probably completely unlike me in many different ways but, as long as you’re mildly interested in some of the things I write about, that’s good enough for me.
Over a period of time I want this blog to take on a magazine-like format – a magazine that deals with a wide variety of things. I don’t know about you, but I never find a magazine which suits me entirely. For a start, there’s a rigid distinction between women’s and men’s magazines. I find women’s magazines just too totally womanly for my liking! What makes their editors think that I’m not intersted in reading about men? Or about football or politics come to that? Though men’s magazines are a sorry lot, too: mainly based on a single sport or hobby, as though men have no variety in their lives and can only ever be interested in one thing.
And women’s magazines are so desperately serious. They recycle the same old “I survived my divorce” / “I lost my parents” / “I changed my career at 47” stories, laced with a predictable mix of hair colour, dress to disguise your shape and new ways with chicken with never so much as a wry smile, let alone a good laugh.
When my sister and I were kids we used to invent our own magazines. It was great: you could put whatever you wanted in it and know that you would enjoy reading it as well as writing it. That’s what I’m aiming for here, really. The menu categories at the top of the page give you some idea what I’ll be covering. No doubt some people will think my range is too broad. Never mind. As long as you sometimes see something that seems to be written for someone a little bit like you, then that’s fine with me. Please tell your friends and keep coming back for more.
a little bit like me 