You know those mornings when you’ve missed the alarm and you very slowly become aware of increasing levels of light filtering through your eyelids? Assuming you don’t now have 30 seconds to wash the dog, post a sandwich, and comb your lipstick, this is a moment of dawning. A dangling of consciousness between the loose freedom of unstructured sleep and the linear organisation of strategic necessity. Left foot, left knicker leg, try to get the bra the right way round, remember to remove spotty dog slippers before leaving the house. That kind of linear. Dawning is a moment of minor epiphany, a realisation, a peek into the mirror of self scrutiny. I think I just had one. I think I just figured out what I’m supposed to be doing here. On these blogs, other writers write about writing but I just write. I add my two penn’orth to these other blogs, amateur burblings (mine) about tasks I know little of in practical terms, then I come back here and tell tales of rats and wellies. Hm!

To be fair, and I should be, after all it’s me I’m writing about here so I could just give myself a break, this blog’s primary purpose is (was?) to get me writing something, anything, that isn’t academic, and to do it frequently. I also wanted somewhere to put all those little products of writing exercises that were born of creative sweat and so deserving of their place in the sun whatever anyone else might think of them. But is that enough? Do I need now to start addressing the process and art of writing itself? What evidence do I have that this would be in any way illuminating – even to me? Does it matter?

Actually no, I don’t think it does matter. Largely because I believe that dialogue is always better than insularity when it comes to ideas and philosophies and even if I am my only audience, the act of framing, articulating, and exposing my thinking can hardly be detrimental. If someone else stumbles over it and is entertained, all well and good. Maybe they will feel moved to add to the body of debate. I found and now very much value Linda’s blog for its frequent questions that confront all of us and give us reason to reconsider or review something. I doubt I will come up with anything as insightful in the forseeable future but I hope to improve the quality of my own contributions there in reflection of those others who are clearly writers first and foremost.

Back here, I will do a bit more thinking about what it is makes writing such a driving force, what readers want from those of us who try to produce, and how best to get the product in front of the consumer. I will need to interpolate the Deep and Meaningful with my idiot ramblings though. I like my idiot ramblings. And anyway, I can copy and paste them into a letter at Christmas to send to my tech-phobe relatives. Recycling or what?!