So 2017 is here with us, and to my amazement I seem to have been pushing stuff out on this platform for about four years now.

I am not entirely sure why, as according to the statistics on the WordPress site hardly anyone actually reads the six hundred or so words I try and put out every Tuesday. Even among the few regulars I confess that one of them is the Lovely Wife, so I am increasingly aware that my path is not really in the blogging business and probably not worth the time it takes or what I am trying to achieve. For a start, I am usually far too concerned about upsetting people or getting into an online argument to be too controversial which usually means more interesting in the views of readership – niceties on the while do not sell books, newspapers or get your site more hits. So while I would like to rant and rave sometimes I rarely have the courage, even on areas where I am on factually safe ground. I do not think you can really captivate an audience by being even handed. I cannot talk about work so that cuts out a large chunk of topics that probably would interest people, but that will have to be private discussions, or until I retire. It feels to me most of the time that too much of what I write is in the style you might sued to calm down an argument perhaps, but probably not a good policy for entertainment.

Add to that that my creative failings and pretty amateur writing – proof that having a degree in creative writing only allows you to criticise your own and everyone else’s writing and does not provide a route to an instant bestseller – then really this is going nowhere. I’m awed by the ability of some of my friends to be creative on a major scale that just seems unattainable to me. And do not get me wrong I am not feeling sorry for myself here – I have had plenty of time over my life so far to realise that being firmly just above average is probably fine, unless you are going to work that bit harder that would be necessary to get you to the next level. There are some areas that I think could get me to do that, but a weekly blog that no one reads is not one of them.

But it has been an enjoyable exercise to have to have the discipline of pushing something out, even if the only person it might entertain (like any of my fiction) might be myself. I have no idea how I have managed to be on time so much of that period as well, so it has proved to myself that I can work to deadlines even with personal things; work obviously sets its own.

I might try a different format, but for now this will be the last post (as it were) for a while. Maybe a more considered monthly reflection might be the way to go. Personally I have been disappointed in the last few years how little truly creative writing I have been able to finish after a period during my Open University degree when it seemed to flow easily. While even fewer have ever read any of my short fiction, I find that in that kind of creativity – telling a story new to the world, even if it is not ‘literature’ and may make only a few people smile – I think that will give me more to reflect on that these odd waffles.

So thank you for those that read these and if you ever enjoyed one I am glad I that the time to write it for you.