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November 29, 2005

As Easy As Riding A...

I've been aware this time has to come sooner or later. I've known it's due for about a month. But now it's finally upon me. I am morally obliged to revive this blog, and even then I'm a few days late.

Over the last few months, I've been increasingly struck that this URL has become:

I'm sure there are plenty of people who'd argue that a blog is nobody's business buy my own, and I can update it as often as I'd like, but to be honest they don't come here that often any more.

It's not that I haven't wanted to, or lost faith in blogging per se, but Real Life has very very much got in the way, and there's been a fair bit going on that I've not been able to blog about. Some of it is work stuff that was confidential, even if quite interesting; some of it is work stuff that I wanted to talk about but knew it was too dull; other kind-of-at-home stuff I've had very very very strong opinions on, but it's technically Not My Business. (It involved the other half and her employer.)

So by the time all of that has been dealt with over the dinner table of an evening, there's not too much time left for the critical path of:

1) Turn on computer
2) Go and look at internet
3) Look at Flickr and see what friends have been up to
4) Look at Blogroll and see what friends are thinking about
5) Log in to movable type
6) Clear out comment/trackback spam
7) Find something new and interesting to talk about - preferably involving a link to something *somewhere* online
8) Post it

Normally I'll make it to about 3 or 4 and then the lure of playing the piano (or is it the stress of having a lesson where I've not done enough practice) will drag me away from the laptop and then to bed.

Even if I've specifically thought of something I want to talk about I tend to be so knackered I get distracted along the way.

Essentially, in purely digital terms, my relationship with The Internet has got less interesting. I don't visit it, and it doesn't visit me. Even not being the top Tom Dolan in Google any more didn't faze me that much. (He's got an olympic gold, he deserves it more anyway)

But a bunch of things have just changed, and so I'm kind of back.

Hello.

Can we just see how it goes please?

Anyway, thing number 1: My job has got much more interesting and I'm actually enjoying it for the first time since Milia back in February.
i) My new(ish) boss has stopped Trying To Be A Boss, because she's emigrating in Spring, and is much nicer for it. I'm doing far more now than I was before. Go figure.
ii) I've got a new business unit to set up from the scraps of some bits and bobs that don't quite belong anywhere else ('head of shit' as the late and wonderful Jon Lewin used to say). I LOVE doing this.
iii) I've got someone working for me on the big project who's bright and learning loads and has opinions and is taking enough work away for me to have some space to think once more

Thing number 2: I've started having lunchbreaks. Even if they're at my desk, time for me is just wonderful. Particularly with a nice fat internet connection. See 1,iii above.

Thing number 3: The high maintenance 'situation' now doesn't seem to need constant maintenance any more

So, I was kind of drifting back towards blogging anyway. But then something trully terrifying happened.

As of last week, I was suddenly in an anthology of blogging called '2005: blogged'. It's, like, a real book that's in print and that you can buy in the shops.

And ironically, for all my stressing about not having something deep and insightful to say, it was for a short throwaway piece with some whimsy and perhaps a bit of subtext.

Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that I should stop being so worried about comparing myself to other bloggers (most of whom weren't in the anthology*) and just get on with being myself and posting any old nonsense.

So, with the exception of this long, egocentric and overdetailed post, let the waffling commence once more!

(And no, I'm not going to tell you which post, you will have to read the book or the archives for that)

Tom

* which is admittedly a selective list, not being in it doesn't mean you're not good and I'm not saying 'ner ner ner', just that I'm not beating *myself* up about it any more.

Posted by Tom Dolan at November 29, 2005 08:08 PM

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Comments

So... you get bored and go and play lovely classical piano music instead.

Sir, may I suggest the 'Blatant Optimism Tinkly Joy Podcast' ?

Posted by: mildlydiverting [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 7, 2005 12:17 PM

nice timing -- i'm just reviving my own too. AND i was in the same book. errr...

re what/how you write, this is the thing that convinced me in the very first place just to have a go:
http://www.emptybottle.org/glass/2004/01/never_mind_the_bollocks_heres_the_wonderchicken.php
Write well, write badly, whatever, just create. If you are saying things that stir people, they will respond.

If you can't write well, write with such passionate muscularity that people stand back and go 'whoa!' Make things, reach out to people. If you write well, keep doing it, and get better, and don't kiss ass for personal gain. If not, just go, bash that keyboard, make a hideous, amateurish squall, one to which, if it has some kernel of glorious truthtelling, people will respond. The mass amateurization of nearly everything is good. If you're a gifted amateur, the world will beat a path to your, er, door.

Posted by: Saltation [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 11, 2005 03:20 PM

hmm the formatting got munged. both those last 2 paras are the key bit snippeted out of the link.

oh, and welcome back ;)

Posted by: Saltation [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 11, 2005 03:25 PM

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