I’ve realised something – blogging, like writing, should be spontaneous. Right now, I feel as though it isn’t, well, except this post, which is.

To explain, I’ve been re-reading some of the stuff that I’ve posted on here for the first time. That might sound strange, but there is a passable reason for this, as I re-read them numerous times during the process of writing and editing, the prospect of re-reading my work again shortly after posting it seems about as enticing as injecting Krokodil into my eyeballs.

Disclaimers aside, my verdict is – must do better, or, to perhaps be a tad more forgiving, because I’ve learned that being relentlessly hard on yourself does you no favours, it’s not as good as it should be. Can I improve? Yes, everyone can, even though I realise that with any artistic or creative medium, it cannot be perfected. Still, relative to my own circumstances, I feel as though some of these articles or pieces I’ve written read as forced, or even worse, pointless.

I’ve had this suspicion for a while, but the thing is, by consistently moving on to work on and post new content every week I haven’t dwelt on it or satiated the curiosity, until now. To have it confirmed is helpful as it’s reminded me of the primary motivations for starting this blog.

I started blogging for benign reasons; primarily as a mode of practicing writing, and by doing something where I could impose weekly deadlines I’d to get into the habit of writing regularly, to the point that it became habitual, perhaps compulsive. That latter reason seems daft, almost naïve, now, particularly as the experience of regimented blogging has become unsatisfying, and is unpractical, as it’s stopping me from working on my bloody book, when the aim was the complete opposite – to give me the confidence and impetuous to finish my book and make something worthwhile of the fucker. My better ideas for columns tend occur randomly, and when I tend not to be writing, that is to say, the ideas should instigate writing, not the other way around.

And, another thing, I’m becoming less and less interested in writing opinion pieces. Not because quality journalism is dying on its feet (it is), that journalese produces the worst prose (it does), or because people aren’t buying newspapers anymore (they aren’t, sniggers). It’s because, and I’m somewhat guilty of this, if not to this extreme, its style, tone and content tends to gravitate towards modes of conformity or cliquish beliefs. It’s a fine line, granted, but more often than not, the opinion piece encourages you to write something that will secure confirmation bias, allow you to preach to your likeminded brethren, or to spitefully, disparagingly rubbish and mock those who don’t agree with you, instead of offering something that entices people to think differently. Plus, I’m not sure I’m a good enough writer, particularly in this context, to be on the right side of that equation as much as I’d like to be.

To surmise, I’m not abandoning blogging, I’m too proud of most of what I’ve posted on it, but for its benefit and mine I won’t be doing as many posts from now on, and, more importantly, I won’t be working to a schedule. Ultimately my hope, not goal, is that by not pressurising myself as I’ve been doing that I’ll produce more work than I expect, and that it’ll be of a better quality. It would be great if I could find a better equilibrium between blogging and writing. It’s an interesting, interesting, Lemon interesting experiment worth trying, and perhaps, just perhaps, it’ll help me get my bloody book finished.