Once Round the Sun

Today marks an anniversary of sorts. Whilst I first set up this blog in 2006, it was exactly one year ago today that I resolved to start blogging on a regular basis. It's true that I haven't blogged every single day since then, but I am happy to report that when the posting frequency did fall, it was always a conscious decision. I wrote something every single day from 17 August 2009 until 15 September 2009. I then did so every other day from 17 September 2009 to 14 February 2010. Ever since then I've been writing on an approximately weekly basis. Sometimes entries will appear more frequently than that, but never less.

So what have I learned from this Experiment with the Air Pump? Well for a start I seem to have discovered that in general people are more interested in my reminiscences about Doctor Who and Toyah than they are in my musings on the nature of time, space, death and reality. However, I've also learned that said musings can be very useful brain training; thought experiments that allow me to exercise my deductive faculties and come to conclusions that hitherto I hadn't considered. All good stuff anyway for someone whose primary fear is losing his marbles.

Dreams and the mind have also been popular topics, no doubt I'll be revisiting those in due course. I just have to be careful that I don't start repeating myself. That annoys people. People, that's another recurring theme. What is it with people and how can considering the antics of a fictional West Midlands caveman shed any light on the matter?

Has it worked?

The primary purpose of this blog as stated 365 days ago was to get my creative juices flowing and get on with that damned novel. It's worked after a fashion; I now have a single coherent chunk of novel written (at least the first half) which I didn't have in August 2009. Furthermore, for some reason now that everything in the book behind me is done (in first draft anyway) I am now finding it easier to forge ahead on to the novel's conclusion.

One thing that does seem to have fallen by the wayside a little is the attempt to get into Good Habits. In particular the one of splurging at least 500 words forth from my brain first thing in the morning before doing anything else. One of the reasons this stopped happening was because the blog entries started to take on a life of their own and required thought, research and more judicious editing. Perhaps I should return to a more rough and ready modus operandi? Of course what I really want to do now is get the novel finished, so if I can resurrect my early morning 500 words they should be used to get Genie through the Wooden Labyrinth, down onto the central plain of Dis, up and out of the hereafter. I think it's time to make myself a promise.

On 17 August 2011 the first draft of my novel will be long finished.

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