Tag Archives: writing

It’s Been A While

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7746516458 4f5bf26e5d Its Been A While

social networking (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

It’s been quite a while since I last appeared here, put my fingertips to the beaten and battered keyboard and allowed my thoughts to manifest. In gaming terms I guess you could say that ‘rage quit’ from the world of blogging over the past few months, and hid myself within the real world of books, gaming, daily life, children, chores, Christmas and strangely enough, crocheting. I owe you an explanation for my sudden disappearance – without a word I left you all (well…those of you that are still following me) and so here are a few things worth noting, which will hopefully explain a few things.

Going self-hosted

While it was an easy process and not overly expensive, my financial situation is one where even the small change, has to be taken into account. I simply couldn’t afford the upkeep of a  self-hosted blog, therefore along with my blogging hiatus, I made the switch back to wordpress.com.

The commercialism of blogging

When I began blogging, I did so with gusto, throwing myself into it head-first, without doing much research. Along the way I got side-tracked by people who used their blog as a source of income and freebies – things such as: product reviews, sponsored posts, advertorials and other advertising. Given that money is pretty scarce right now, I thought that it would be a great idea to tap into this source of income. What I didn’t realise was how time consuming it was, how easy it was to fall prey to the allure of extra pocket-money and the odd free product. More importantly my writing suffered as a consequence. I spent so much time seeking out contacts and writing about reviews or services, that I had no enthusiasm to write about the things that I truly wished to write about.

Social networking

By the time I quit, I think I’d signed up with nearly all of the social networking sites out there. Twitter being the worst for it’s addictiveness, was something that I found myself using every hour of the day, if not more. I spent so much time trying to promote my blog, that again, I was left with less time to actually write. Not only that, but my home life was suffering – I was ignoring house-work, avoiding going out, not playing with my children. It was all so wrong that it’s actually quite hard to talk about. My hobby turned into a chore, once that was taking over my life, with little fun left in it.

So I quit. I didn’t tell anyone. I removed myself from social networks, unsubscribed from most of the blogs I’d been following and deleted my account with my hosting company. I lost all of the posts I’d written since going self-hosted, when I moved back to wordpress.com, because I completely forgot to export my content and I’m pretty sure I lost most of my followers too. In a way I’m not phased by this. The things I’d written about when I switched over, weren’t worth reading in my opinion – they were just poorly written updates to bring in an audience, with no heart in them.

So what now? Now I write. I’ll write when I want to, about the things that matter to me. The only social network I’m still on is Facebook and I won’t be publicising aside from on there. I want to continue the story about Big Bro’s journey through hospital – something which got side-tracked, so I will be focusing on that for a while and I hope that by doing so, you, the few readers who I have left who have loyally kept popping in now and then, will appreciate it. Thank you for staying.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that 2013 is an excellent one for everyone.

It’s National Poetry Day!

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That’s right. Today is National Poetry Day. I’m not sure why, but this is a day that I always look forward to on the calendar.

Poetry is a huge part of my life. When I’ve been at some of my lowest points, it’s one of those things, that can either change my mood in an instant, or portray exactly how I am feeling at the time – that’s a pretty special thing. Aside from music, which comes a close second, it’s one of the only ways in which I can get across something that is inexplicable.

With that in mind, I’ve dug out from my very dusty and cluttered bookshelf, my notebook of scribbles, doodles and random poetic endeavours.  I’ve picked on of my favourites to share with you here, purely because I have fond memories of writing it. It was written after a beautiful day on Dartmoor, where I climbed to the top of one of the Tors and watched the sun set. It is a very vivid memory, which sadly doesn’t end in the nicest of ways, however it is one that I shall never forget.

106920500 b1c6089b04 m Its National Poetry Day!

Departing Lovers.

The evening swelled -
a sun-kissed sky
of golden hues and clouds,
blithely sweeping
through purpled pinks
and blooming blues.
Sounds of sunset
whispering against skin
and watery eyes,
daringly drawn
to a sinking and
smouldering sight.

Yearning we watched -
our shaded glass
a burnished barricade
between here and there.
Wind whistled, such wildness,
warmth abandoned -
too cold and clammy.
Tangled and tussled
surrendering lovers left
through backwards glances,
caught glimpses
of a departing day.

Why don’t you put your pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard if you prefer), and try writing your own poem? Abandon your preconceptions and feelings of it maybe being not good enough, and just let your imagination run free. If you’re very brave, you can also share your efforts in a comment below, or tell me your thoughts on poetry (and constructive criticism on my own attempt!).

What are you waiting for? Get writing!

Not Today.

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3845885019 6f374c7550 b Not Today.Image copyright of Andrew Beebee found here.

Slowly, dreamily, as one does when they wake from a long dream-less sleep, she opened her eyes. It must have been early, she thought, as the light that filtered blurringly into her vision was a cold, grey and life-less one. A yawn escaped her dry lips and with it the stretching of the arms, legs, back and the obligatory pointing of the toes which, more often than not, resulted in foot cramp.

At least that was the same.

As her eyes adjusted to wakefulness, she scanned the room and its contents. The dust covered PCs on top of the wardrobe, looked on like silent sentinels. Clothes that hadn’t been worn due to their ill-fitting tendencies, bulged from draws, cupboards and dark, musty places under the bed and in the bed itself lay the person that she’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Sleeping. That peaceful, carefree kind of sleep with only the subtlest of snores.

She didn’t recognise that person. Neither did she know the tired-looking female that stared out at her from the mirror opposite. Silver peppered her faded, box-dyed hair and the lines at the corners of her eyes and lips spoke more than words ever could. Looking down at her sagging chest and shape-less body only confirmed to her the worst of it.

This was what she had become.

She knew that if she padded out of the bedroom and onto the landing, that she would face two rooms and that in those rooms would be the three small children that she had brought screaming into the world. Knowing how innocently they all slept now, made it almost impossible to believe the memories of blood, pain, tears and overwhelming joy that she still had of that time.

Back then things were different. The stuff of dreams were to be made and their world would be a more wonderful place and for a time, it had been. It had been all that he had ever wanted. What she hadn’t bargained on however, was that she would almost cease to be. That her dreams would be forgotten – would lay trampled and crumbling, like so many autumn leaves, under careless feet.

She looked again at his slumbering form, her eyes penetrating the quilt as if somehow, if she looked hard enough, she would truly be able to grasp what it was that kept the silence between them. But no matter how hard she stared, she knew that there would be no answers. Like a closed book was his mind to her – his thoughts, secreted away, as if turning the page would unleash a torrent that would wash away the person that she believed him to be.

With a last look at the mirror, she lowered herself back onto the bed and allowed her head to be cradled gently in the soft, comforting embrace of the pillow.

“Not today”, was the whisper that drifted upon the breeze that morning.

“Not today”.

Thank you!

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Thank you, all of you.

Five’s A Fellowship has been live now for a few weeks and to be honest I didn’t expect anyone to be even remotely interested in what I have to write. I created it because I wanted to write and had been struggling to do so for a very long time.

Writing is something that featured prominently in my past – there wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t scribbling away on a bit of paper. Memories of my Maths class in High School, writing random poetry instead of concentrating on my lessons, spring to mind. However as I hit adulthood, entered the world of relationships (some good and some bad) and settled down to have my children, the need to write sank back into the back of my mind. The urge has always been there but something else always takes up my time, before I get a chance.

People throughout my life have told me I should start writing again, just pour out whatever is in my head and not worry about the content and so, on that advice, my blog was born.

To be honest it’s a bit all over the place. I don’t have a specific theme or niche, I just write what I feel or think at the time and that is fine for me. What has surprised me the most though, is that people actually want to read this stuff! So my highest page rankings on a given day has been 10 views and I have a handful of followers. To me, this is still wonderful. Out of the thousands, if not millions of blogs out there and the billions of people in the world, a small portion of you beautiful people, actually stop by this place and take a minute to read what I’ve typed and to make my day by doing so.

When your life is pretty isolated, it’s something special to know that you’re not alone in the World.

So thank you, thank you and once again, thank you, to all of the people who have visited my small corner of the internet. You have given me the confidence to carry on with my true passion – to write – something which means a hell of a lot to me.

With love,

Your Newbie Blogger.