A year today since we started the blog. In terms of entry material, it’s more like two, since we started the blog as an alternative to Christmas letters.
Dan pointed out that most of the entries have been a) in the first month or two (rapid posting to emulate the year in full look of the Christmas letter) and b) in the last couple of months, since getting the laptop. So it’s maybe not so true to the time periods themselves, but hey, it’s there.
I know there are plenty of people out there who hate Christmas round robins. There are even books of assorted excerpts from (we trust) genuine letters, designed to bring out anyone’s inner humbug. So on one hand, you’re let off lightly by not having them from us any more. And on the other hand…much more to read!
The difficulty with overviews is that they can’t help being a bit blow by blow, a bit exhausting, even just to contemplate writing, let alone to read. A couple of years back, I attempted a CV for my own purposes, just to see what I’d been up to, as I’d been in the same job for a while. I was tempted to have a lie down after…because however you write it, en masse, all those activities, those opportunities, become overwhelming.
A blog, with luck, is a bit more like a telegram. Or a social column. Or a shaggy dog story you can relate to someone else. Maybe even akin to a poem, if the writer’s really going for it. Certainly potential for a Speaker’s Corner type rant – we can’t all get to London for that kind of opportunity every time we want to let off steam.
Maybe a blog is also like a soap opera. Bite sized, but addictive. Designed to make you come back to see what’s new, whether any new characters have been introduced. With the big advantage that the writer is not limited to the environs of Albert Square, the Woolpack, or any of the other soap locations.
More like a series of postcards from different locations, akin to the (very well) organised interrailer who’s determined to gain as many different postmarks as possible on their cards back home.
Perhaps the real challenge is to go back and see how much I’ve written about particular topics already, so as to avoid them in the future…or not. Like the soap opera, the postcard, there’s a certain comfort in familiarity.
I promise not to include a Christmas shopping guide, a la magazines with their regularly revolving seasonal focuses. But sometimes, given that writing in cyberspace tends to make me muse about transitory and changing things, a bit of repetition, a bit of grounding in real life is no bad thing.
After all, a blog is an ideal opportunity to “stand and stare“, in words, stepping back from a “world…full of care”.  Whether it’s a blink, a double take…now read on.