The blog is still going, although it’s not a frequent as I’d like. But I’ll use the “quality over quantity” excuse for now.
The year has started well regarding my goals for trying to achieve tasks that will help me improve with the writing. I have managed to dramatically cut down on my TV watching and use the free time to devour as many books as I can.
The books have been a mixture of philosophy, fiction and writing help-books. The writing books were particularly interesting when applied to whatever fiction I was also reading at the time. I still enjoyed the fiction but I could now appreciate the work that had gone into book also. I can see the development of the characters, the foreshadowing etc. And I’m sure that appreciation will only grow as I get more books into me.
In addition to the increased reading, I’ve assigned myself a weekly task to write a piece with a minimum of 1,000 words. That has been more of a challenge compared to the reading, probably as it requires me to produce the piece. The pieces I’ve produced so far have been somewhat lacking in beauty.
The pieces are generally a self contained scene. Some of the pieces have interesting ideas under the surface but the language and structure of the piece wouldn’t entice a reader to stick with it. I’d be hard pressed to do so myself to be perfectly honest. But I imagine it’ll be much like my experience with learning to play soccer. I couldn’t do much on the pitch at the start but as time progressed I began to realise where my strengths lay. Here’s hoping that the writing will be much the same. At least then I will have a few things that I know that I can do well. I guess time will tell in that regard.