Stopping and Starting
Following months of travelling to distant destinations with work this year, and scrambled days at home washing clothes and re-packing cases, I began to question my part in the “blogosphere” (I hate the word, but cannot think of an alternative at the moment). I looked back at posts from the past, and realised how poorly recent posts reflected on them. Where once the writing had been engaging, interesting, and at times thought provoking, it had become an exercise in “saying something”, rather than “having something to say”.
I consigned written thoughts to Blogger, random photos of train platforms and hotel foyers to Instagram, and equally random observations and thoughts to the instantly discardable world of Tumblr. One day recently I realised I hadn't written anything of consequence for several weeks, and was strangely fine about itright until Tumblr refused to let me post one day, and (while waiting for it to sort it's life out), I read about the seismic changes going on within Google.
While reading the various news stories about the impending “evolution” (read:death) of Google+, and becoming ever more frustrated with the dysfunctional architecture of Tumblr, it occurred to me that websites, or web platforms, would be far better off if they concentrated on one thing, rather than trying to be everything to everybody. I guess I had a moment of enlightenment, and realised how stupid I had been. Half an hour later I had a new WordPress blog, attached to a vanity domain name, and began migrating posts into it.
Now comes the hard partknuckling down to writing on a regular basis. Recording the stories of the days, weeks, and months to come as I once did so easily. I suppose in many ways it will be about creating “me time” to writeinvesting in myself for a change. My world is invariably filled with all manner of expectations and obligations, which tend to make any concept of free time laughable. Perhaps it's time to change that.