Dear blog,
Sorry. I've been treating you like an unloved dog recently, leaving you out in the rain and forgetting to feed you. We've not gone for any walks together, I've resented the idea of playing fetch and I can't even remember your name.
If you were a real dog you'd have been taken away from me by now, or dead, and I'd have been told I was no longer allowed to look after animals or go within 100 yards of Pets at Home.
Fortunately for my criminal record, the whole dog thing is just a metaphor and actually you're merely a terribly maintained output for the thoughts I'm not allowed to express in my daily job. But still, you've not been fed in ages and there's only one reason for that:
Writing is hard when you're a writer.
Weird sentence, that, but it's ever so true. I love words but the idea of spending all day with them becomes very unappealing when from 9 to 5:30 you've been sat staring at them, trying to make them do things without reverting to sarcasm, irreverence or rhyming couplets.
"But the client would love this bit of dystopian fiction I've written for them - it really helps sell the idea of using them for that product they offer."
"No, Ash,"
"How about if I make it rhyme?"
"Go back to your desk, Ash."
But really, none of that is a valid excuse for the piss-poor output I've been showing recently. If I spend all my time just writing copy then copy is all I'll ever be able to write.
That'd be no fun.
I've been trying to set myself little projects to overcome such fears, but I've been trying that for years. Ever since my first job as a copywriter I've been promising myself that I'd write just as much outside of work as I did in the day, and ever since that time I've discovered it's really bloody difficult to live up to such ambitions.
For example...
Project 1.
I tried writing a short story whilst studying for my MA and working part time. I finished that short story, but only 12 people ever bough it from Amazon and I think I was related to all of them. It wasn't very good.
Project 2.
Social media copywriting is all kinds of different. To anyone who says it's "just tweeting," get the fuck out. It's constant little briefs about the kind of stuff the client wants you to say, and while a bit of it is encompassed in a content plan, the majority of it is on the spot. It doesn't end at 5:30, it never ends. Oh God, it never ends. It might still be going.
Anyway, I was doing my MA dissertation at the same time. It was really good, but it lead me to drinking and desolation and a mild resentment of the term 'viral content'.
Project, oh I don't know, let's say 7.
I've been editing the wonderful ShellsuitZombie for the past few years but that can turn into a full time job if you want to do it well, and when you already have a full time job you find yourself indebted to the team who work with you.
Project now.
At the moment I have at least 3 projects on the go:
I'm aiming to finish my first full length novel. I'm aiming to get it published. I'm aiming to give it an actual plot.
I'm working on a collection of short stories and poems. I'm aiming to get that published too. Fuck, each of these projects basically includes a whole host of extra little ones.
And finally...
The point of this blog post...
At long last...
I'm aiming to make my bloody website up to date.
Have you seen my portfolio lately? No, because I've got rid of it. It's that old that my gran invites it to bingo.
My last blog post was a yearly review of last year. No-one read it because it was entirely self-serving, but still, at least I wrote it. I've done nothing since then!
NOTHING HERE IS NEW. IT IS ALL OLD AND BAD AND DATED.
So my main project is to fix all of that.
A blog post a week is the minimum. If I can't do that I may as well just embed my Twitter feed and blag it.
Writing is hard when you're a writer, but only if you let it be. So come on Ash, stop being beaten by the tempting prospect of an evening watching Storage Hunters. You know they'll find something under a bit of tarp, you know they'll all cheer when that fat guy cuts open a lock and you know that every second you spend pissing away your time doing nothing, there's something far more exciting you could be doing.
Now apologise to these good people for that long blog post. Sure, you've made them wait, but I doubt any of them really gave a shit.
