Greater Things

I have been working on greater things – not, I hasten to add, in import: simply in volume – and my mind has got itself lodged across the bigger page.  I cannot, for the life of me, think of anything worth the saying that does not run to at least a couple of thousand words: if it’s worth the saying, it must be worth me throwing a bucketful of adjectives at.  I have fallen into a ‘more words good, less words bad’ mindset that means that I am writing nothing I can use here.  My ‘Blog Reserve’ has been used; I have nothing to fall back on, and I now have to ‘write on the hoof’ if I want to keep publishing to my self-imposed schedule.  And I do: it is important to me.

Other than when I have something that I really want to get off my chest, I very rarely write my posts on the day of publication.  I like to check them.  Occasionally, if I am feeling particularly frisky, I like to drop a little joke in here and there.  I like to re-read when enough time has elapsed to stop me making the same mistakes again.  I need to read like everybody else: with no idea of where it is going, so that I do not slip into the trap of assuming that everybody knows what I am talking about – even when I know that I don’t.  Even when writing for a readership that (although of infinitely higher calibre) would comfortably fit inside Robbie William’s cap*, I like to do things to the best of my ability and, for me, that means reading things through until they squeak.

But I have cost myself that privilege.  I have taken my eye off the ball, my foot off the gas, and the lid off the scotch.  I have found too many other things to do that have swallowed up the time I should have set aside for this and I’m not entirely certain of how to remedy the situation.  I would really like to revisit my old friends Frankie & Benny, but they need time – I need a post or two in hand before I can give them the room they need.  I think I would probably also like a little run of Dinah & Shaw, The Meaning of Life, The Writer’s Circle and even The Bearded Man – if I can find my way back to him – time to tell a few stories.  They are my favourite things to write and, without fail, my least popular posts – possibly because they are longer or, more likely, because they are not very good – but, as things stand, I do not think it is at all possible for them to harm my statistics any further.

If I miss a post or two along the way, I apologise.  I’m sure you will manage perfectly well without me (although this is not my plan).  One way or another I will be attending to the matters I need to be attending to whilst ignoring the matters I ought to be attending to.  And when I’ve done it, I’ll tell you about it, at length…

*Last week my total readership was smaller than during a couple of weeks in May 22 when I didn’t publish anything at all.  Perhaps that’s what I need to be doing…