Dear me. It’s been a while. So long in fact that I omitted to post about my December Country Diary about Malin Head (many thanks to Lucy Blincoe, who edited).

So it’s 2023. I have been thinking about this blog and the new year, and about my writing. I am such a slow writer. But although I’ve been on Twitter for over a year now, I am not really getting with the beat. Twitter does my head in, TBH. I can do it in spurts. In fact, as a pretty addictive personality, I get drawn in quite quickly. I enjoy lots about it. But it’s such a time-stealer. And such a comparison-inviter. So I always end up recoiling from it. There’s also the problem of the current owner. But more than anything, it creates too much admin. Hence the pinning my December Guardian piece there, but entirely neglecting it here.

So a new year’s resolution, even though I don’t do new year’s resolutions, is to spend even less time there and more here. I’m coming to the end of a very long writing project. And I want to write other stuff, but I’m shy about writing it. I also to write other forms but I’m shy about that as well. So I think I might try and do a weekly blog here, just about life in general, about what’s on my mind, what’s inspiring and annoying me. Ramblings. Of mind and body. Just to get me used to writing about whatever comes into my head. To try out new ideas with no pressure.

I used to journal/keep a diary. I haven’t done that for years, partly because of chronic pain issues that I’ve blogged about before, which means that writing with a pen for any length of time becomes painful for me. Writing on a keyboard is better, but even that requires a lot of management in terms of taking care of my body & timetabling in a lot of rest. So that also limits the amount of time I can sit writing. But almost more importantly, writing using a keyboard is an entirely different mood-experience. When I journalled, I used to drift off into a zone that was meditative. Minutes flew by as I stared out the window. And then maybe wrote a sentence or two. And then drifted off again. It was great for recording dreams; for starting poems. It was also great for revising poems. I loved the physical act of writing. I loved the way thought spiralled out from a pen onto the blank page. That thin cursive line that was a physical representation not only of thought but of feeling.

When I write at a keyboard, it’s more serious. The letters are not shaped by my own hand. The font, the structure, is less free. But I want to write more, and I want to explore new stuff so maybe going back to blogging is the way to do that. Now that blogging like this is kinda passé and all. Who will even notice what I’m doing here? I’ve hardly any followers anyway, so maybe I can push the boat out a little. Write for myself, but sort of also write with the knowledge that it’s not private. I think that might sharpen me a bit. Force me to take a bit more seriously. Recognise that time is passing and that I’ve things to say and want to say them and I can begin here. Beginning again, and all that. And given that my birthday coincides with the turning of the year (as all my friends know, I count myself lucky I wasn’t born a racehorse), maybe that why, inevitably, a new calendar year makes me think of what I want to do next. Take myself seriously. Come back home.