Getting Back on the Horse

In any given year, there are two danger moments in the life of this little blog.

This is one of them.

The first always comes on New Year’s Day or, to put it more accurately, on the first day of the year when a new blog post is required. The second comes when the produced work for the year is finished, as it is just now. This year, just like last year, it was the plays with Castlebar Musical and Dramatic Society. A wonderful experience but, as the man says, it’s all over now.

The two moments are the same but different. Try to imagine a little writing demon sitting on each of my shoulders, one being bad and one being good, and both of them whispering in my ears. At both of these danger times, the bad demon’s whispers are way, way louder than the puny good demon perched on the other side.

“What’s the point?” she says.

“Blogging died ten years ago, yet here you still are. Give it up. Instead of piddling it up against the wall, why don't you put this bit of writing energy into something that might actually become something, that might actually do something,” she says.

“Just stop,” she says.

The good demon, on the other shoulder, stays largely silent.

The reason that these danger moments occur is straightforward. On each of these two occasions, you see, I simply fall off the horse. The first occasion has a reason that is both straightforward and universal. Christmas. Once again, as with other years, I will have gleefully allowed my brain to stew in an orgy of old movies, family visits, and tins of Cadbury Roses. By the time the New Year comes around, I can no longer remember how to ride the horse that is my blogging habit. 

It’s much the same thing when the production of the plays comes to an end. Although I’ve been writing blog posts all the way through that process, the majority of those posts will have been about the plays, the rehearsals, the actors, the production. They sort of write themselves. Now that the plays are over, here is that famous blank screen in front of me once again and that girthy little demon sitting at my ear, telling me over and over that I simply shouldn’t bother. It’s a persuasive voice.

Yet here I am, scribbling.

Why is that?

Easy.

I don’t listen to my little demons, good or bad. I listen to myself. Also I find it hard to stop doing things… any things. If I have a pair of old shoes with holes in the soles and catastrophised uppers, I find it hard to stop wearing them. The Status Quo must be maintained wherever possible. This imperative drives me back, time and again, to the blank page. Even when the current blog post will only be a directionless ramble, as this one will clearly be, I am still here. Putting down the words.

But it’s more that that. This thing that brings me back and back to this rather fruitless endeavour, after 15 plus years of it.

Simple.

It’s good for me.

It’s good for my head and it’s really good for my writing. This almost-weekly act of compiling some increasingly elusive thoughts into a passably coherent thousand word post is an exercise that keeps my writing muscle in trim. When I come to write my other stuff, my fingers know where the keys are and my brain largely knows what is readable and what is not. (Said he, in a largely unreadable sentence).

I’ve said it before. I love it when people come and read these silly words and I love it even more when they tell me what they think of them, good or bad. But, over the years, this exercise has become far more about me than about you. Sorry about that, but it’s true. The thing that drags me back here, after Christmas revelries and Theatrical adventures are all done, well, it’s not good demons or force of habit or anything like that.

It’s just me.

So on we go. What will the next blog post be about, or the one after that? Not a clue, sorry.

All I know is, if I don’t get hit by a tram or something, I’ll be here working on them.

Be still, bad demon.

I’m writing here.