H is for both Hiatus and Halting this theme

Like so many blogs, a post at the start of the new year? Who would have expected that plot twist???

Everyone.

It’s been a while, I know, a frequent refrain on this blog. 2020, as it turned, was not the year I returned to blogging, or writing of any kind, really. I finished a few rough draft manuscripts – smoldering excrements not worth the pixels I used to form them, to be honest. I have nothing to blame, nothing to point at as the root cause (not politics, not the pandemic, honest). I just couldn’t find the headspace necessary to create. Regurgitate, sure, attempt to revitalize dead manuscripts, yep, but create whole from new cloth? Miserable failures only need apply.

2021 has made me no promises, and that’s to be expected.

Realizing my writing was sinking, I turned my attention to something else for a while last year, though still intimately related – reading. In fact, although I started the year with a book challenge goal of 35 books, I later revised it to 52, and even that didn’t account for the 67 books I actually read. They weren’t all doorstoppers, but still, wow.

I’m not entirely clear what the future of this blog is (or my writing in general). Neither is something I am ready to give up on, but both have suffered from extended absences. I know I have a blog post I intend to write soon comparing Kobo and Kindle e-readers because it’s something I’ve wrestled with of late. I also have some thoughts on minimalism – digital and otherwise – that I might jot down.

Looking ahead to 2021 – well, if 2020 taught us anything, trying to look a head is a fool’s errand. I started 2020 with all kinds of hopes. Reality was firm and a bit harsh in resetting that perspective for me. But I can talk about what I would like to see happen in 2021. Namely:

  • More writing, particularly of fiction. I have really floundered the last year, and I find myself falling into old traps far too often. I’ll start a new piece, only to decide that it would work better as part of my failed fantasy milieu (and it rarely does), and then both sets of work are spoiled and trashed. I’d really like to stop doing that this year. I miss the joy of creating, the thrill of documenting the scenes unfolding in my head.
  • I wouldn’t mind more writing, of the nonfiction/blogging sort. I have this space, I should use it better. I occasionally even have things to say that people might find interesting.
  • A vacation. Of some kind. Please. My wife (and I) haven’t had a real break in a long, long time. Possibly close to a decade or so, and never one where we didn’t have to worry about the kids. Well, the kids are all teens/adults now and don’t need us to pamper and watch over them all the time, so maybe we could get a little break where we can just relax? Complicated, of course, by the still raging pandemic.
  • In 2019, I made some great progress at weight loss. 2020 did not see me reverse that, but I also haven’t made any further progress. This isn’t as easy as nonobese people think it is (there, I said it). It isn’t just a matter of willpower or doing more of X and less of Y. I recognize my responsibility in it and would like to re-engage that part of my psyche that got me this far in 2019.
  • Reading. I surprised even myself by how many books I read in 2020. Yes, some were graphic novels. One was technically a short “children’s” book (though as a side note, I highly recommend reading The Little Prince to everyone. Wow. What a book.), but that is still 28,481 pages read last year. This year I would love to read at least 52 books again if I can – but only if I can. I’m more interested in reading good stories than in the number of stories read.

I had not intended this post to read like a New Year’s resolution, although it has that feel. That’s also probably a good place for me to stop this post and leave room for another. I think this year I might try a mix of my longer posts (like the Kobo/Kindle post), as well as some one offs that are little more than tweets that were too long for twitter.

Until next time!

2 thoughts on “H is for both Hiatus and Halting this theme”

  1. I think I wrote 47 blog posts in 2020. Not the fewest I’ve ever done but I am aiming to change that this year. So far, so good. Also, seems to me I need to write more letters in 2021. 😉

    1. I dare not count my blog posts in 2020. All these years later and I still flail at what I want to do here, but feel I really, really want to do it!

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