28 Blogs Later - A Retrospective
Here's a little irony for you; I sat down to write a blog celebrating the fact that I had made it this far ...and I got writer's block. I wanted to reflect on what, if anything, my blog had accomplished and it landed me in a surprisingly abstract state of mind.
Summarising the success of anything requires an understanding of what you were trying to achieve in the first place and, in that sense, my goal was a modest one. I wanted to offer all of you lovely people some free words so that you could assess my writing ability. A bewildering array of fresh talent has been produced by the expanding frontier of e-publishing and I needed a way to intrigue people about my more substantial works, known by some literary types as; 'Books' ;-)
Over the course of writing my blog, I have found myself engaged with something more, though. I had great trepidation about becoming 'a blogger' because I wasn't a fan of the mediums' early history. When the popularity of the internet erupted, a great many people felt that writing an online diary, for the world to share, was a worthy use of their time. Though it is nice that people can share their day to day happenings with the world, much of this material is self-indulgent to the point of offering nothing to the reader. Needless to say, that isn't what I've been trying to achieve.
Luckily, once I realised the necessity of writing a blog for promotional purposes, I found that it had an evolutionary effect on many aspects of my craft and opened doors to expressing ideas which don't really fit in else where. Maybe the shorter word count just allowed me to indulge my inner columnist but whatever the case, I have learned a great deal from the experience and would encourage others to blog about their interests, whether they are related to writing or not.
Over the course of the past year, I have found that my goal has changed into something more than that of self-promotion. Above my own interests, I want to promote the importance of the written word and encourage others to express themselves. Writing is an extremely subjective thing, as are most of the things which stem from creativity but we can all learn from each others journeys.
Now, I wish that I could lay down some rules that I've learned along the way but I can't. Any advice that I have is spread throughout my blogs and doesn't ever produce a; 'this must be done that way', type of thing. Nor can I offer any particular scene structure or method for dealing with the dramatic resolution of your work. Nope, all I can offer is slithers of advice about how to truly express yourself and produce something which, even if greeted with indifference by the buying public, will satisfy you, as its author. Something that will leave you with the feeling of a vision realised, rather than a crafty grab for cash which can be considered a failure until the revenue stream turns up to save your sanity.
Now, to the retrospective. I've gone through all of my past blogs and presented the title along with one or two of my favourite quotes. In some cases I have also added an explanatory note.
Enjoy, and if something sparks your interest, please go back and read it, even if you have already. Although these offerings come weekly, monthly or (in this case) bi-monthly, they aren't supposed to be a thing of the moment but some earnest philosophy from a life spent obsessed with writing.
1) 'A Bad Book?'
Authored after my electronic publishing career had just begun, I wasn't too sure about it, if I'm honest but then the start is generally an uncomfortable thing for me. I still stand by much of what I said though.
Quote;
'Ignoring the true desires of your creative being is the surest path to failure.'
2) 'Writing and morality'
