Thursday, January 26, 2012

Two blogs in one day – is this wise?

Two blogs in one day – is this wise? At this stage, I think I'm still 'scene setting', so bear with me.
Thank you if you've decided to follow my blog. The content will be pretty random, there are lots of things I'm interested in and will be writing about – from my life here in Devon, my wonderfully eccentric friends, my animals, the books I enjoy reading and, of course, regular bouts of ranting.
So, if you're still reading and you're still interested, I'll tell you the real reason for my blog – I need your help. I've been wrestling with a novel, or possibly more accurately, a memoir, for the past 12 years. I've written about 60,000 words but, somewhere along the way, I've lost the plot, wobbled off course and ended up in a ditch. What I need is some fresh input, to tell me what works and what doesn't.
I've gone to writing groups, on writing courses, read books on how to write – and still can't finish it. I think it's commonly called Writer's Block.
I don't think it helps that I write for a living. After a hard day at the keyboard crafting flowing prose for anything as diverse as a holiday park, a jewellery shop or a breakfast cereal, it's hard to then sit down in your 'spare time' and start writing again. But this is all an excuse of course.
I turned 50 this year and I have a feeling of 'now or never'. Some of the people I've written about in my lovely, mad, Devon life have already died. My beloved Rosie dog has gone and I find myself thinking more and more that soon it will be too late.
So, this blog is a last ditch attempt to get me to write – write anything – as a way to get myself back into the mindset I need to pick up my 60,000 words, beat them into shape, add another 40,000 and get published!
It's taken me so long to get this far that the Kindle, and Kindle publishing, have now appeared on the horizon and getting published is a rather different concept. But let's see what happens.
I will be including pieces of my existing work on my blog, many sections of which can stand alone as short stories, and also including new episodes. There will be lots of nonsense about chickens, cows, farmers, dogs, owls, buzzards and the humdrum stuff of everyday life.
If hope you'll like what I write – please let me know your thoughts – and, if you do like it, please tell other people about my blog and, eventually, my book!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Better late than never...

Well, here we are then. I can't put it off any longer. I've run out of displacement activities. No, that's not true, that's never likely to happen, just finalising the design on this blog page has been wonderfully long-winded. I started it over a year ago – and look at what I've come up with! Still don't know if I can post photos or categorise my posts, but I've spent ages fiddling with the font and the colours and the photos... but for now, this will have to do.
So what has brought me to this momentous event? What happened today to push me over the age and take this great leap into the unknown? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All the times I've been out walking the dogs, or in the bath, or in the middle of a meeting and thought: "Ha! I've got to put that in my blog!" and now I've got a blog going, there's nothing to report.
Don't give up on me just yet... I'm sure there's an idea coming along at any moment...