Tuesday 1 July 2014

Starting over...

So why have I resumed my blogging after a silence of over three years? There are several reasons for this – quite complicated and fairly personal reasons, to be honest, but I can attempt an explanation. My life has become somewhat unfulfilling in recent times – oh, I know all about the fact that one shouldn’t complain about such matters, or think negative thoughts etc., but when examining the reasons for the unfulfillment, it is necessary to identify the causes first before one can do anything about them.

So, another round of self-improvement is called for. Identifying that life had become a tedious routine of cleaning, cooking, administrating, drinking and sex, I decided to set about the re-introduction of more creative and challenging activities into my days. This is about creating more meaning to the lfe that I lead.

Part of that is to start writing again. I am filled with regret about the opportunities I have passed up previously – for example, four years ago I had a brilliant idea for a play or film to coincide with the centenary of the Sarajevo event that sparked the First WorldWar, but did I do anything about it? Did I ‘eck-as-like, and so the project lay dustily in the bottom drawer until it was too late to do anything about it. I doubt if I will still be around to resurrect the project in time for the bi-centenary, so it’s an idea that will have to be relegated, like many others, to the bin. However, I am bursting with many more ideas and I still have two novels to finish, so it’s absolutely key that I get on with it and take a more disciplined approach to the writing habit.

As well as returning to my fiction, I have also started entering a few writing competitions. I probably won’t win any of them, but this is something which can give a sort of kick-start to the writing process – as they say, there’s nothing like a deadline…..

I’ve also signed up for the the ‘100k in 100 days’ challenge which starts today and runs for, well, 100 days. And the good news, gentle reader, is that the very words you are reading here count towards my 1,000 per day! As any writer will tell you, writing is about being consistent and about being persistent – it is a strange fact of life that nothing is achieved if nothing is done (who knew?) and that only by getting the words down can success come our way.

For now, I won’t bore you any further – this is all a bit of (perhaps unnecessary) explanation about why I have started blogging again. From now on the blogs will contain less information about why a blog appears, and more blog-type stuff that will hopefully entertain and inform. We’ll see.