I was lazily on my way to sleep, reading in bed, after having a glass of my birthday whisky (a thirty year old single malt Highland MacDuff), having already set my alarm for 6:30am, well aware that I will struggle to drag myself from the pit in a little over six hours from now. I was doing that, but then realised that I really ought to put in a little bit of time on the typewriter. The blog, which I have spent so much time on over the last year and a half, is in danger of slipping away. Recently over the weekend I have neglected it, but generally over the last few three or four months (maybe longer) there has been a creeping lack of dedication. I used to be able to do one, on the day, every day, without fail, regardless of how I felt. And that was absolutely the point.
It didn't matter if what I wrote was dreadful, exhausted, needy, pitiful shite as long as I wrote something; it was the eternal exercise in writing something, anything, every day. Recently I have found myself becoming self conscious for now particular reason. I worry that a blog post may be uninteresting and so I make my excuses and ignore my responsibility; I just don't bother. Ten I find myself desperately trying to catch up a couple of times a week, usually at the weekend. This goes against everything I started the blog for. I decided to do it daily, as opposed to just a few times a week, so that I would do it daily and not be rushing a few every Sunday night like so much ignored homework. I'm doing this, essentially, for the future; for my future, and that of my soon-to-be wife, and the children we will one day have. If I don't read and write every day I will eventually be dragged back into the laziness of the non-writer; excusing inactivity away with the imaginary affliction of writer's block. Writing is a habit; this blog is that habit. Keep up the habit and use the acquired skills for commercial gain at some point in the future: novels, stories, columns, articles, radio script, TV?
Some days, at work or in the shower, fully formed ideas for blog posts leap into my mind, often accompanied by the prose to compose the opening paragraph, leaving my a convenient jumping point to complete the article. When this happens I can't write fast enough to keep up with my racing thoughts, but I give it a good go. When this happens I need to grab the opportunity to move onto the novel I am writing, which exists variously as a complete chapter, two incomplete chapters in two states of incompletion, some characters with traits and relationships, approximately three interweaving plots, themes, and bits and scraps of other stuff.
So now that I have jumped from my bed and written this blog post (as well as one I started earlier, but haven't finished yet, but am about to), I would, were I a free man, stay up for many more hours writing (and possibly having another nip of birthday whisky). But I am not a free man, I have a day job to get up for and minimum wage to earn; so it is up to me to find reasonable and realistic times to write, lest I spend the rest of my life making excuses and writing a 'daily' occasional blog about nothing.
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