After lunch on the terrace, I free-wrote in my journal. It was a Tuesday. I’d taken the week off work to focus on my novel. I thought it’d be helpful to narrate what I thought I was doing. I thought it might feel like I had some company while I was immersing myself in this story I wrote in 2020 and lived in 2008.

I read somewhere that you shouldn’t write too much about writing. The advice was that readers would be bored by the existential (and practical) challenges that exist between the writer and the page. I don’t agree. I love to read about writing. I find that writing about writing is often writing about life.

2021 has been a strangely shaped year. It was our second pandemic year, the year when living through all of this became somewhat normal. When I look back on the life I had in December 2020, I’m struck by how much has changed. It hasn’t been an easy year, but I am very grateful for the fresh joy that has arrived in my life over the last 12 months. Before the calendar flips over to another year, I wanted to take some time to reflect on my writing year.

Classic blogging (which weaves together links, research, first-person stories and random internet ephemera) is wonderful to read.

I’ve over- written this ‘I’m back blogging’ piece, which (ironically!) perfectly encapsulates why I’ve decided to resurrect my blogging habit. From 2009-2013, I blogged pretty consistently before taking what I thought would be a short break. That break was a lot longer and a lot more necessary than I realised. Though I’ve been writing and reading consistently (obsessively?), I’ve missed having a regular publishing practice or outlet.