Now, you may expect this post, to say as it does on the tin, but this time, you’d be mistaken. I have to keep you awake when you’re here somehow!
No, this About Me, isn’t about me, it’s a new blog that has this week gone live and belongs to a friend of mine. I absolutely love her “About Me” page so much, it has made me look at my own again and decide that I need to do a new one. I think we do need to constantly keep an eye on what we have and what we are doing and improve as and when we get the chance and seeing fellow bloggers, especially new ones, coming on the scene and looking so good, gives me a bit of a kick up the bum.
Anyway, this is Octavia Grey’s “About Me” page. You really should go and check her rather wonderful and beautiful looking blog out and I’m not just saying that because she’s a friend. Her blog looks amazing! Here.
This is Octavia Grey;
Who am I?
It’s a question most of us have either asked or will ask ourselves during our lives, so in the words of Spandau Ballet ‘Why do I find it hard to write the next line?’
It’s not because I don’t know who I am; I believe I have a very strong sense of self, born of a life that up to this point has not been without its fair share of problems. It’s more to do with the fact that the statement I make here shapes me, readers will form their opinion of me just by reading a few lines and, as we are told often enough, first impressions count.
Regardless of what I say some of you will like what and how I write and some of you won’t but I hope there’s a majority slide towards the former!
So here goes.
Octavia Grey is my name. I live in Nottinghamshire and two years ago I decided to follow a dream. Cliché? Maybe, but it was also one of the scariest decisions I’ve had to make as it involved reducing my working hours. Back then I was a full time working single parent with sole responsibility for my five year old daughter. Taking less hours meant less money and a tightening of the purse strings in order to succeed, but I felt such a pull to my love of writing that I knew I’d make it work.
I was successful in my application to the University of Nottingham to study their undergraduate programme in creative and professional writing. I’m just beginning year three and it’s fantastic. It feels like I’ve unlocked a door I always knew was there but never dared open
From the end of the first semester a whole new future had opened up for me. A change in career was inevitable and that’s the point at which I am now – the long, hard slog of writing my debut novel, currently out on submission.
In the middle of all the mayhem, I met my partner, Mr G. He makes me happier than I’ve ever been and I’m lucky to have his support – and sarcasm – to carry me through the difficult patches of my transition from frazzled employee to self employed writer.
Mr G brought his own two children to our partnership, making our family of five, which is noisy, hectic, sometimes hard but always worthwhile. The children’s enthusiasm for life is contagious.
When I’m not working, running the kids round or writing, I’m reading. If I’m doing none of those things it’s because Mr G has reminded me that I’m one half of a relationship too! While time management is one of my strengths, I sometimes feel like a spin cycle that never ends. Not unique to me I know as I’m sure most working parents are the same.
Cooking is a love of mine, a pastime usually accompanied by copious amounts of good wine. We recently invested in Hugh Fernley –Whittingstalls’ River Cottage Veg Everyday! Cook book and are working our way through it. The recipes are truly delicious.
We’re redecorating at the moment too so any spare time involves covering walls in gloriously coloured paint, the names of which are things like “Foxy” and “Lemon Fizz”. The house is reminiscent of the inside of a Skittles packet.
Mr G, along with my dad, also grafted to build me a room which we grandly dubbed “The Writing Room”. It’s here I escape to for the silence in which to write. It’s a perfect room and I am hugely grateful to them both for caring so much for my needs.
I like to think I’m much more than can be written in an opening blog post. For instance, I hadn’t told you that I’m an ex solider, having joined the British Army at the tender age of 16 or that I’m an ex public servant with a healthy disgust of the way Government manage the public sector. You didn’t know my favourite music group was Queen or that I’m obsessed with anything concerning Ancient Rome.
Being a technophobe, blogging is a very new experience for me but one I’m beginning to enjoy. I hope you’ll stay with me for the experience.
Margot Kinberg says
Rebecca – Thanks for sharing this. It is indeed a very thoughtful and creative way to approach the ‘About Me’ part of a blog. I agree that we really do benefit from stepping back and ‘checking in’ with ourselves sometimes and this is a good way to go about it.
Ravena Guron says
I’m really bad at the “About Me” part. I never know what sort of information to include…. who reads that section anyway? Do I want to be jokey or serious? Hers is a really great example. She’s got the line just right.