Its better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self - Cyril Connolly

I spent the better part of last evening amalgamating various old blogs of mine into this one. Why did I put myself through that? Well considering that it took me the best part of an hour to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress thanks to a dodgy plugin I thought I’d deleted months ago and the inability for my install to successfully import the blogs correctly at first I really did start to wonder myself.

Over the years I’ve picked subjects I’ve had an interest in and started various blogs to explore them. I never thought I’d get a following but after watching many writers, and for some I call them that out of sheer politeness, gain a loads of readers I wondered where I was going wrong. I tried the various circle jerk sites like Entrecard to get new readers and all I got was warnings from my web host about my traffic being to high for my package. If I was lucky I received a very veiled attempt at self promotion in the form of a comment designed from the start to make it look like they had actually read my post. I just didn’t get where these bloggers were getting their readership from.

When my RPG blog joined the RPG Bloggers Network it’s traffic didn’t so much as jump through the roof as gave me a slight boost but those that came to the site actually read my posts and I was very lucky in that a lot of people took the time to comment on my writing and I’ve got to know a lot of folk through it but at the end of the day this blog gets only a handful of visitors a day. It’s a personal blog so I don’t expect much but if I was to tell you that almost every day around 80% of my page views are for the Malteser Cake recipe I posted months ago you’ll see where my angst comes from.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I need validation or acceptance when I write but I certainly want someone to have read it. Over the years my writing has changed and it’s not just the spelling that has improved but I always feel that I’m always grasping for things to say. If I have an idea for something to write about I’ll then spend four hours struggling to put the words together. Whether that’s my dyslexia showing through I don’t know but it certainly shows with anything I rush. I joined in a conversation a friend of mine was having on Facebook today and no matter what I typed it felt as though I was digging a deeper hole with every sentence. For those curious it was a discussion on why people were being so upset about horses dying in the Grand National when loads of animals die every day for our needs and desires. He is a vegetarian and I’m a conscientious meat eater so we’re never going to agree on the basics but I found I really struggled to put together an argument for my view point. I know why I believe the things I do but could I get anything writing down other than, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘I’ve got grindy teeth and choppy teeth so I’ll use them for what they are meant for’? Needless to say I don’t think I came out of that battle with to many hit points left. On a side note I need to learn more about basic punctuation I feel…

I just took a couple of minutes there to check if my wife had updated her blog before going to sleep and reread her latest post. I’ll hold my hands up and say that because it’s got a lot of crafty posts I tend not to click the links but this time I did. Can you guess what the first link was about? This exact same topic!

Everything I write is there for the general public to see. I don’t mark anything as private for my eyes only. Maybe I should do that? I don’t know. You only have to look at the varied and many categories in the sidebar to see just how far I wander at times. The only brand I’m pushing is me and aside from friends and family I don’t really see who would actually care about what I write. I love to write though.

My written English skill levels are always a major fear for me when I put something out there even if only a handful of people will actually ever see it. It’s not just my writing skills that are out to stop me actually writing though. In my days of writing for Wired’s Geekdad blog I enjoyed every second of it but seeing the level these guys take their hobbies to really intimidates me and so any time I come up with a topic to write about I end up dropping it as they would either be far more qualified to write it or already have. Why even try and write a smart blog post on something topical when someone else out there will be able to do it far better than I can. On here my answer would be that I’d try because in the grand scheme of things noone would see it. Add possibly a few hundred thousand readers and I’ll shrink back into my dark corner and let someone else give it a try.

For those that haven’t guessed yet this is one of my rambles that like my earlier discussion on Facebook isn’t actually going the way I originally intended. I’m grasping at a point but never quite getting there. I can almost guarantee I’ll wake up in four hours time in a eureka moment with a way to make this more structured, readable and to the point but that in itself completely misses the point of this post.

I’m getting a huge feeling of deja vu with this posts…

This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.

Desirée Delgado @ Flickr

I’ve been looking for writing inspiration for a while now. It’s a habit that has fallen by the way side. In fact if you go back through the years on this blog I’d hazard a guess that the most written about topic is actually about me writing more. If it’s isn’t number one then it’s definately in the top three. So I went about looking for something to give me a nudge for something to write about every day and to be perfectly honest I found absolutely nothing online. By nothing I mean I didn’t find anything that wasn’t related to religion but in saying that all I’m looking for is a one word topic. I could have used the daily prayer book thingie that Vonnie was given last year if I could find it as all I want is a nudge. I don’t want to be sitting discussing the ins and outs of whatever passage from the bible was mentioned that day.

With that in mind what I did find was 365 Tao: Daily Meditations. I’m going to take a leaf out of Unclebear’s book and use this as a starting point. Hopefully I’ll get a post written every day but I say things like that a lot and I’m going to be very busy over the next few months so I’m making no promises!

So aside from the thoughts on starting my daily writing exercise I guess the big change is that today is the first day that I have been without work since I started my first job over 15 years ago. It’s terrifying. Let me get that out the way right from the beginning. Who would want to employ a mid-30′s guy with no degree level qualifications and no real transferable skills outwith knowledge of working for the civil service who is also dyslexic? Most folk in their right mind will run away screaming if I were to give them my CV but I have found a couple of folk that will employ me. Those two people would be my wife and I. That’s right we’re setting up our own business and hopefully very soon things will start to speed up and we’ll be well on the way to success.

I sometimes feel like I’m playing that round in Takeshi’s Castle where you have the choice of three doors and you have to run and jump through one of them. One is fake and you bounce off it ending your game, the second you can get through easily enough but someone is waiting on the other side to try and catch you and the last door has no obstacles and so is the easy route. You’ve no idea which one is which though when you try to go through it and it’s all against the clock. I have those three doors in front of me but someone has thrown away the timer. We’ve hummed and hawed over the last 15 months about this business and after a false start at the beginning of last year we’re at the stage of having chosen our door. My job now is to get up enough momentum that even if we hit the locked door we make it through to the other side.

Today has been spent recovering from last year and preparing for this year. If any of you had seen me today you would have said that I was lying and that I spend today doing dishes, cooking dinner and washing nappies. This would all have been true but it’s what was going on in my head that is important today.

I’ve found out what my problem has been with my writing output. I’ve spent the last six months trying to work out why I can’t keep my output up there where i want it and I’ve finally got to the bottom of it.

by mudpig @ Flickr

A little background first. This blog has been going for years in various formats. My Dice Bag RPG blog has been going quite strongly for just over a year. Every other blog I write for gets articles posted as and when I find something to write for them. That was until I became unwell yet again for more than a few days and my resurgence stopped dead in it’s tracks. Two months later I get back to work and I start writing again. So what am I missing? What is the reason that I cannot write at home?

I don’t have a desk anymore.

When I gave up my desktop PC in favour of a laptop I also gave up my ability to sit at home and type. I can’t comfortably sit with the laptop on my legs and type and I can’t type whilst standing at the kitchen worktop either. Basically my productivity is nil when I’m at home.

Almost all of my blogging and writing these days is done over lunch breaks in the office as I’m at a desk in an environment designed to allow me to type without much distraction. Ok ok so open plan offices aren’t really designed for that but you get the picture. I’m in the correct position to be typing so when I do actually try I manage to get some writing down on the screen. Unfortunately whilst at work I can’t research posts very well due to inane firewalls and nosy-parkers wanting to know why your looking at whatever page I happen to have open on my screen over lunch time. This basically means all my Geekdad contributions have dried up completely. I need to rectify this.

Hopefully with the building work going on in my home just now and the possibility of going back to university in 9 months means that I may actually have both the space and the need as well as the desire to have a place to write.

I think I need to go shopping for a desk.

I said it at the beginning of 2008 that I was going to seriously get my head into blogging. I meant it and despite only posting half as many entries in 2008 as I did in 2007 I’ve learned far more than I ever have on the subject.

So with that in mind 2009 is lining up to be a far more productive year. My colleagues at work have finally caught on to what I do during my lunchtimes and whilst some have been really interested others have questioned the point. It’s not as if I’m going to end up with an audience the size of say Perez Hilton or Darren Rowse over at Problogger. That’s not why I do it though. I write because I enjoy writing. I’m completely inept when it comes to written English though despite it technically being my first language. I am gradually getting better though thanks to things like this.

During my years at school I was never encouraged to write. I was told to write but thats an entirely different thing. We had the usual book reviews and structured critiques of plays but we were never encouraged to write for the sake of writing. Actually that’s a complete lie as we had a supply teacher for 3 months that did exactly that but that’s a story for another post. Other than that one teacher the only time we were allowed to just write was when it was short story time and even then we had limitations put on us. No less than 500 words and no more than 800 words put a huge limitation on anyone that wanted to just keep going with a story in their head and no matter what your chosen subject was you had to have a twist. It could be the robber getting away like Robin Hood or the unlucky gambler finally hitting big but you had to have that in. You couldn’t have more than one twist though as that wasn’t allowed and if your story didn’t have any and actually worked without it you were forced to include one or pick another subject to write about.

As the years went on I stuck to my maths, tech drawing and computing and lost almost every skill I ever gained in the English classes. So much so in fact that I had to rely on a girl in class to help me through my final round of English modules before I left school. I did the video production, editing and graphics whilst she did everything else. As it was a group mark we all passed but only just. These days though I have stories running through my heads from all the roleplay campaigns I’ve played in the past as well as those I want to play in the future. I also have the need to write on topics that interest me other than storytelling. Again it’s not my forte but I enjoy it. My wife encourages me and has gave me a huge boost by telling me exactly why she enjoys reading my writing when I put my mind to it. She says it’s like having a conversation with me as I lay things out in exactly the same way as I would when going on at length about something I care about when I talk to her. If just on person other than myself thinks that about something I’ve written then I’ve won a watch.

I don’t write for anyone but myself but I will admit to being a stat junkie but that’s more down to my years of playing computer games and having to get a higher points total than your mate. My wife has a few blogs herself so there’s a constant battle with that side of things. She has more subscribers but I get far more daily viewers… usually.

The only other piece of advice is taken from Wil Wheaton. Don’t be afraid to suck. It’s going to happen and if it does and noone reads what I have to say than so be it. As I’ve said it doesn’t get written for anyone other than myself anyway so if I get it right and people do like it then it’s something to learn from and to try and replicate in future. For every post that I get a new reader from I’ll have ten that will only ever be read by close friends and family so it’s no use it effecting my writing.

That was a bit of an aimless ramble though so I’ll leave it at that and get stuck back into tidying and coming up with a new tructure for my blogs for 2009.