Back On Track for the Big Comeback

There have been almost two people who have asked me ‘why don’t you blog anymore?’ and I thought that it was about time that I answered that question.

I suppose that the first answer would be that I never really stopped. I have blogged pretty regularly for a decade or even two, but those blogs did become less frequent as I wrote more books, songs and other creative things Before the pandemic, my blog output had gone from once a week to once a month. However, I like to think that my loyal band of readers looked forward to this monthly blog as much as to their payday.

The second reason is that the nature of blogging has changed. A good friend who is an expert on all things social media points out that people search for blogs in a different way now. It used to be that people thought ‘ah, I like blogs with bilingual puns about cheese’ and so followed everything that someone wrote about them. Now it is more likely someone decides that they want to read something with puns about bilingual cheese (?), finds a blog and then moves on to another the next day. The loyalty to one particular blogger has gone and having a subject for your blogging is key. My random thoughts do not really fit that model.

Then, of course, reason three is the pandemic. You may have noticed it, it has been very popular in the last couple of years. Contrary to all the predictions that there would be great creative works caused by isolation, it is more likely that isolation leads to a lack of ideas. Writers do tend to need people, whose ideas you can steal. Ahem, sorry, I mean you need people as inspiration. I have worked on some books, short stories and other creative things, but blogs have tended to be a reflection on life and life has been too much on pause since 2020.

That is not to say that the pandemic has not been a productive time for me. My YouTube videos have been regular and reasonably well-received, but they take up time that could be used for writing. Basically, reason four is that my creative efforts have tended to go in a different direction and creative time is finite. Check out my YouTube channel, yo. It may be that I should have moved into vlogging. Certainly my film editing skills might make it more likely and things like TikTok lend themselves to visual expression rather than written expression.

Talking of being online, this website itself now feels rather old and creaky. I built it in 2016 because I needed something quick and I am not sure that it looks quite as fresh as it should do. It still works and occasionally people ask me about things listed here, but it is honestly not what I want it to be. The trouble is that finding a website designer – yes, I am offering to pay – is remarkably hard. I have talked to a number in the last year and none seem particularly interested in helping. It is weird. If you know any website designers, let me know!

Then again, look at the world around us (reason six). I have written quite a lot about politics over the years, but it is hard to keep up any kind of optimism in our current political climate. I am optimistic, but I have concluded that I was born too soon. If you look at the attitudes of the under 45s – serious about climate change, appreciative of social cohesion, sceptical about the profit motive, positive about Welsh identity and independence and willing to make sacrifices for the common pooling and sharing of resources, then I am much more naturally part of their world than mine. I can only hope that I am preserved for long enough to see what they make of the world because it is going to be a lot better than the current ruling generations (in case you are wondering, one interesting political trend of the last twenty years is that people no longer tend towards being less caring as they get older. If you give a damn about the planet and other people when you are young, you tend to retain those convictions. That is why the definition of ‘young people’ keeps getting older and older, to the point where the main political divide in the UK is heading towards being between the retired and the working).

I am going to apologise to my regular blog readers (Mrs Trellis of north Wales, naturally) for the lack of activity. I do have things to say and cheese to make bilingual puns about and maybe with the end of the pandemic, I need to return to the blogging. I would still like a decent website to host it and I would still like an audience of millions for it.

A Merry Christmas to all our readers.