Tag Archives: writing

On what I said

I said that I would write something, and that is what I didn’t do. The circumstances were a little complicated, and it wasn’t as easy as it might seem at first, but I tried and I got there. Now, if you’ve been following this blog, or my efforts at writing, you’ll know that this is something I’ve struggled with, but dearly want to devote time and energy to, writing and playing with words. I read little, not nearly enough, and that would help me learn about the art of writing. You’re never too old to learn from observation and practice, and I’m never too old for anything. I did not write last week. I said that I would write an email, and that is what I did. The circumstances were a little complicated, and it wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem at first, but I tried and I got there. Now, if you know the story about why I needed to write an email and what it was for, then this won’t be a very interesting story, because you’ll know the bones of it and that’s really all there is to the story. I wrote an email, and in […]

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I said that tonight, I would write something. Anything. I would overcome the writer’s block from the past… how long? I don’t know. A few months? No, more. Many months? Oh no, much more. A year and a half, like a Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate bar made of time, regret, missed opportunities, and the bitter but exciting cacao of mild adventure. I want to make this the new habit, an hour every Friday night of writing. Now, I did thwart myself somewhat this evening by promptly going to the shops and spending several hours buying an awful lot of food that I don’t really need. I needed tissues, cheese, and some ‘yellow food’, which is to say food that spends most of its existence in a freezer, and which a nutritionist would describe as ‘out of scope of their area of interest’.

Normally on a Friday I would have other things to do, and generally that’s a single thing, a thing that I would describe as a having a hobby where I spend forty five minutes driving out to somewhere where I’ll be stuffed into a barrel and rolled down a bumpy hill for fifty minutes while intermittently getting kicked. If you’re not sold on that idea, then there’s something wrong with you, because I’ve been doing this for years and apart from often promising myself to stop doing it forever, I’ve kept at it because the buzz of when it does work out is really quite acceptable. Gambling hours of my Friday night on the chance of an Endorphin hit.

So there it is, that’s why I’m writing again. I got straight into it, I didn’t first redesign the website first for several days like I usually do, I got straight into articulating excuses and burning my bridges. So that’s a welcome bit of growth over the past couple of years. Hopefully I’ll follow up with some searing commentary about my divorce, or getting up early, or life in a post-pandemic world.

I was going to tweet this nugget of meta, but I realised that, somewhat recursively, it would make something to write about in itself. I’ve actually written quite a bit this year compared to previously, driven I think mainly by photos with added narrative. If you’re kicking off blogging or getting back to it, it’s something to keep in mind – writing what you’d otherwise consign to a ‘Story’, using the photos to inspire narrative. I have something to write about that, the ‘Stories’, in my head, but that’s for another day.

If you’re reading this then you’re at least somewhat aware of my blog, the site that you’re reading this on right now, and you know that I after many years of hardly writing anything I suddenly came back to this playpen and set about two massive posts about dating and dating apps, and a whole pile of small waffly bits and photos. I wonder sometimes if those pieces (and an earlier one which was about autism, or not) have intimidated me into not attempting another of that scale, or if it’s just the effort involved and perhaps I’m lazy. I’m not shy of ideas (well, for topics; writing something interesting, witty, and amusing is a whole other problem. But I think it would come to me with my usual process.).

Anyway, that’s my meta. I should start chipping away again and deliver something that people would like to read that isn’t about bread or clamped lampposts.