emotionalmarkup

There’s a queer sensation I get when about to write something that someone else will be reading - even if the probability of my words touching the retinas of another human being is far less than that of George Lucas creating a summer blockbuster about Jar Jar Binks - I draw up a blank. I don’t know what to write. It’s like eating soup with chopsticks.

So, picking up on an exercise I once read, whereby, instead of staring at you monitor wondering why the BBC hasn’t updated its RSS feed in the last five seconds, you describe the torment of your writer’s block and hope to uncover a terrific idea or unleash a flow of something legible and interesting. The theory is that through simply initiating the process you are “warming up” your writing muscles in preparation for exercise. (Actually I prefer the Hemingway method whereby you lubricate your brain cells to a level sufficient for creative output).

Alas for me, it just makes me want to shovel out nonsense in the hope that I may avoid articulating an opinion, or forming an argument about something that arrested my interest ten minutes ago but which has now become as interesting as the Wall Street Journal is to a blind dog with no anus (just in case the dog in fact could read or wanted to shit on the paper, circumstances in which it could be argued that dogs might find the WSJ interesting), or fly shit is to just about everyone. That being said, I do admire those who can so deftly compose a rounded essay on a topic with engaging facts and just enough humour to raise an eyebrow or piss oneself hysterically, depending on the location of the reader. Hundreds of said articles are written every day. Can you find one? It’s a great waste of company time.

How do they do it I wonder? “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working” - some mildly famous painter once said. So I decided to draw a picture of SuperGeekess in black biro. Still waiting…

“Adapt or perish”, “turn new corners”, “invest in people”: yeah ok, enough already. If you haven’t already heard about the rise and rise of online news then you may not have had the pleasure of hearing such responses to the perceived challenge of the internet from media executives. But if all the hysteria and rapid investment in the web by media companies is any gauge, then there is actually some substance to what they are saying.

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Can we call ourselves professionals? Given the age of the web, it can be claimed that a huge chunk of people in our line of work have really only been doing what they’ve been doing for maximum of ten years. I’m excluding folk like Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates and other over-achievers of course.

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Note to self:

While it’s a little bare at the moment, I have created a new area to house “stuff” in the most sweepingly generic sense of the word. At the moment I’ve only had time to upload minor distractions such as webpage kickstarter template and a basic page to help webbies and writers with accents. I’m working on a few mashups intermitently so hell knows when I’ll get an alpha up.

Also I’m going to start editing and publishing some writing I’ve done over the past few years starting with Barcelona diaries: a series of random scribblings on my time in Barcelona. There’s still so much to add to this as one gets caught up in life and abandons all attempts to document it. I spent most of 2008 in Spain and am only now beginning to appreciate the impact it had on my outlook and my tortilla recipe, therefore I might rename it to Reflections on Barcelona, The Barcelona Experiment, or some other suitably poncey name.

Now I’m back in London, I will have to do the same but I suspect it will be darker prose to match the thick doona of grey that blankets us every day. Maybe I could entitle it, Fog wars or Who forgot their umbrella today?, both of which would neat names for an alternative folk trio.

What else… oh yes, I would like to record some solo acoustic guitar that I’ve written and learned (my sound engineering studio amounts to nothing more than an in-built laptop microphone and Audacity, but I suppose that were not making a “Best of” album here).

That should do for now.

I’m constantly in awe of people who can channel large amounts of energy into a single pursuit or field of achievement. Those who reach success are adept at this, for example artists, those in business or science. Coupled with social and economic pressures, one can only wonder at how they might squeeze in a few hours to dedicate to a hobby or parallel personal goal.

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