This is not a New Year's resolution. It really isn't. I don't really do New Year, and you should note that despite appearances, this post was not written on the eve of 2015, but in the early days of December, as I prepared to finally inflict my website on the world…
It is however a promise I have been making to myself, on a semi-regular basis, for some considerable time now. One day it may be true.
I love writing. I also have some modicum of talent for it, apparently, which only serves as cruel encouragement, as I seem even more adept at avoiding doing it.
This is partly due to my profession. I don't pretend to know how challenging other lines of work are, nor do I wish to engage in the age old sport of 'teacher baiting'. ("But you finish at 3.30 every day...", "but you have six weeks holiday...") All I know is that my job, rewarding though it can be, is also hugely tiring and robs me of both the time and the motivation to sit quietly and put pen to paper or fingertips to keys.
It is not purely the job of course. If that were the case, very few people would ever write anything. I suppose it is also the fear of taking that wrong turn, of realising that the big idea wasn't so good after all, and the problem with prevarication is that it increases the pressure on my ideas to live up to age old expectations.
I will always find something else to distract me from writing, something to occupy the time that should be spent setting my ideas down on the page.
I hope this website and this blog may change that, and will encourage me to get words down onto the screen, and to realise the narratives that have been flitting through my head for the last 12 years or so. I need to get my ideas down in black and white, and see if they were worth the wait.
Let's hope so.
Oh, and happy midnight. Though there will be another one at about the same time tomorrow.
As I said, I don't do New Year.
It is however a promise I have been making to myself, on a semi-regular basis, for some considerable time now. One day it may be true.
I love writing. I also have some modicum of talent for it, apparently, which only serves as cruel encouragement, as I seem even more adept at avoiding doing it.
This is partly due to my profession. I don't pretend to know how challenging other lines of work are, nor do I wish to engage in the age old sport of 'teacher baiting'. ("But you finish at 3.30 every day...", "but you have six weeks holiday...") All I know is that my job, rewarding though it can be, is also hugely tiring and robs me of both the time and the motivation to sit quietly and put pen to paper or fingertips to keys.
It is not purely the job of course. If that were the case, very few people would ever write anything. I suppose it is also the fear of taking that wrong turn, of realising that the big idea wasn't so good after all, and the problem with prevarication is that it increases the pressure on my ideas to live up to age old expectations.
I will always find something else to distract me from writing, something to occupy the time that should be spent setting my ideas down on the page.
I hope this website and this blog may change that, and will encourage me to get words down onto the screen, and to realise the narratives that have been flitting through my head for the last 12 years or so. I need to get my ideas down in black and white, and see if they were worth the wait.
Let's hope so.
Oh, and happy midnight. Though there will be another one at about the same time tomorrow.
As I said, I don't do New Year.