I’m a poor blogger – intermittent enough to be seen less than one of those comets that so excite astronomers!

For me blogging, doing this, is akin to taking a trip into my own secret midnight garden, a place where only I go – occasionally there are signs of other visitors, but they are few and far between, and they generally tidy up after themselves.

I initially compared blogging as being like standing on a dimly lit stage in a huge dark auditorium – maybe out in the darkness there are people listening, but maybe there isn’t.

Do I scribble to obtain clicks of approval, second guessing what I think is trending and popular – and then do I chase more clicks and start an ever-escalating need for validation from people I’ve never met, and am very unlikely ever to…?

Or do I let myself vent because it is a simple release?

I scribble because it helps me organise my thoughts (not that reading these posts would give credence to such a claim), once it’s been written down I can process the thoughts, agree, disagree, expand, retreat and even dismiss.

I create a reference point in time purely for myself – well mostly for me…

I’m struggling with the whole getting published thing, it is my quest, my holy grail, and this should be a record of my process, but mostly it’s not.

I wite because I genuinely enjoy it, the whole process, the blank staring at the wall frustration seeking that one word that you can taste but cannot articulate, the frantic typing – hands desperately trying to keep pace with my imagination;  all of it gives me pleasure.

My product I think could be improved, but I’m sure all who write fail to reach true satisfaction with their work – so for a scribbler of words to say that is the next best thing to a true throw away comment I’ll ever make!

Covid-19 is taking its toll – sanity for many is a vaguely distant memory.

For me, the distinction between workplace and home has now disappeared – the blessing of working from home has borne strange fruit, an outcome I genuinely never expected.

I used to seek my sanctuary in my ‘study/mancave’, but this is where I now earn a living, obtain money to pay my bills, and as such it is no longer that bolt hole from the realities of life – it’s just not.

I will adapt, I will because the urge to vent my imagination at this desktop machine surrounded by my books will eventually win out – normality of a kind will return – it will.

But until it does, I will accept what is happening, acknowledge the change that is my new (first world problem) reality.

Volume 4 has been held back, restrained by so many things, that now I have acknowledged my issues, maybe the path to recovery and productivity is closer than we think?

Stay safe – keep sane!