My Writing Process Tour

Some of you may have noticed that I have been a bit slow with my blogging recently. First of all, most of August I spent away on holidays, but, most importantly, I decided to take it easy when I realised that writing, social networking and related activities were taking over my life and turning me into an unmerchandisable monster. Had I not been married, I would be fast approaching the end of my shelf life. From now on you will see a new more chilled out version of me… ;)

Who nominated me for the tag?

My Writing Process Tour

Thanks a lot to Demi from Beauty and the Mist for nominating me for My Writing Process Tour tag. Demi is a beauty blogger who writes about everything starting with make-up, fashion and finishing with DIY, humour and home improvements. Yes, she is very versatile, which makes her more fun. Demi is not only a great blogger, she is also a very warm person, which I highly appreciate. I love exchanging a few random moans about kids and other stuff with her over e-mails. :)

I would also like to say thank you to Sissi from Beauty4Free2U, who wanted to nominate me first, but I ruthlessly rejected her offer, then accepted Demi's nomination… Such a shameless act deserves to be rectified. I am on my knees, Sissi! This gorgeous blond lady also writes about beauty and fashion. She has a great sense of humour and kind personality. She knows all about cruelty free products.

Below are my ideas and answers to 'My Writing Process Tour' questions

1. What am I working on? I am actually chilling out now. I am kind of enjoying the end of summer. I have written a post about my new favourite moisturiser which I am going to post soonish. Other than that, I am waiting for my kids to start school and nursery again as right now I am doing little for myself and everything for them. I am wearing a clown's hat… 
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? I don't feel my blog is massively different from a lot of other blogs, but I do try to publish only well-researched posts and I try to present them in a reader-friendly format. I sometimes fail and most of the time I know it… Also, I truly try to be helpful, especially with my anti-ageing stuff which was the main reason for the birth of my blog. The content expanded when I received a lot of products for reviews or heard some stories from friends or my hubby that I could not keep to myself. Now I write anything that I fancy, including fashion, humour and this post, off course! :)
3. Why do I write? One day I came across a few awesome anti-ageing devices; I discovered the whole new world of stuff that I never knew existed. I don't like keeping things to myself, so I started to put everything into writing. Doing so motivated me to search for more information. Although writing was enjoyable, I didn't enjoy having no readers, so all the social stuff started, various opportunities arose and so on…
4. How does my writing process work? I get ideas in a lot of different ways, so I am going to put them in bullet points below:

Where do I get ideas for a blog post?

• My first couple of posts were born from searching online for some random stuff. This is how I got into blogging in the first place. Then researching around the subject gave me more ideas, and the rest is the past… To summarise, scientific articles or google search around related topics give me inspiration.
• Some information comes from newspapers, especially, beauty section. I sometimes pick a similar topic and expand on it or simply summarise it if I think people may find the info interesting. 
• A lot of ideas comes from people on Twitter. Company or people descriptions on Twitter can be very inspiring.
• Sometimes I bond with someone through Twitter, then if I like them, I ask if they would be interested in answering a few questions for a blog post.
• Companies provide products for reviews, which gives a few blog posts and sometimes makes me research related stuff. 
• I get inspired by real situations that happen to me, such as writing about my back pain and acupuncture, my experience with antibiotics.
• Funny things that happen to someone I know are obviously worth putting into a blog post (Help! I Swallowed a Crown or My Weight Loss Story With Hoodia and Fat Metaboliser)
• I meet some awesome people along the way and I ask if they would be interested in collaborating, sometimes they say 'yes' (my photo shoots with Sid: the first one you can find here and the second one here)
• Sometimes I try to be social and show some appreciation to the people that I like (10 best beauty bloggers and this post)
• I offered to arrange a giveaway for the company Senzimi.
• I offer other bloggers to collaborate (Muscle Atrophy from Botox, Natural Make-up tutorial and Pony Tail ideas)
• I bought a couple of books that I found interesting. I have a quick look at them to get some ideas.
• Ordinary things in the house or my own routine gives me plenty of inspiration for posts. To be really honest, when I dedicate myself to writing, ideas flow, I just need to pick one and decide which one I am going to focus on. Time is more of an issue to me.

I hope that you found at least one or two ideas for your own blog if you are a blogger. If not, maybe you could share some of your tips?

Who do I nominate?

Now it's time to nominate some other bloggers that I would like to tag for My Writing Process Tour. The first blogger is the super sweet and stylish Tanya from Attraction to Fashion. She is very brave in her choice of clothes. She likes to mismatch and colour block and she does it very well, so if this is something you would like to improve on, you have to visit Tanya's blog for ideas. The second blogger is the super creative Corinne from Skinnedcartree. She is full of initiative, hard-working, runs her own #socialblogger's tag on Twitter and, obviously, has a blog that is worth reading. Hopefully, we can steal some of her ideas after she has shared them in her My Writing Process Tour post… :) The third wonderful lady is Jade from Bohemian Muses. Her blog is more of a lifestyle blog, but she seems to write whatever she fancies which involves things that happen to her, her thoughts, ideas, travel, book reviews and anything else you can think of. The blog is very enjoyable to read and you quickly start to feel like you personally know her. Jade becomes your friend and you want to know what else is happening in her life just like you would with anyone else that you know very well.


What are YOUR most interesting or unusual ways of coming up with ideas for blog posts?