Somebody hand me a duster.
I think it's about time that I give this blogging thing a shot again. Many of you will have thought that it was curtains for my blogging career, and so did I. My actual career has taken priority over most things over the last eight or so months, and I'm sad to say that this blog was one of the first things to get left behind.
But I'm proud of what I've got here, and it's probably worth trying to add to it - even if only occasionally.
So what's been so important that I've not had time for writing?
The short answer is, as I said, my job. It demands a lot from me and, as always, I demand a lot from myself. Very rarely do I come home at the end of a day at work having left anything in the office - except occasionally my umbrella. It turns out that being mentally sharp for ten hours takes it out of you.
And so when I get home after sitting in front of a computer all day, the last thing I want to do is sit down in front of another. Instead, the prospect of scraping together some dinner and sidling off to bed is much more attractive. Indeed, I've found that sleep is the cornerstone of the working week because without enough of it emails and draft documents seem that little bit heavier. I'm getting stronger though.
Then there is the sad truth that creativity is hard to come by after spending a day in the concrete jungle. My jokes are weaker (and that's saying something!), my poems are laboured and my blog posts are, well, non-existent. Give me a legal document to draft and I'll be on my way; ask me to write anything personal just now and I'll be chained to the blocks.
But there is hope - I am writing this after all.
And writing is important. The number of times I come across people who can't write properly is staggering. I'm one of the lucky ones because with a couple hundred blog posts behind me I have been honing my writing skills for years. Of course writing emails and drafting documents requires quite different skills to rambling away on here, but most of it is the same: knowing your audience, communicating your ideas, proof reading etc. I'm not infallible, but I can string a sentence together - mostly thanks to this hobby of mine.
So work tires me out and creativity is lacking - maybe it's about time I get over that and get back to writing?
Aside from work, plenty of other things have been going on in my life. I won't bore you with details, but at the extremes I had to take two weeks off work with concussion (or post-concussion syndrome to make it sound cooler) and I've just finished reading Great Expectations. Although completely unrelated, both managed to give me numerous headaches.
I will stop this rambling now but I should say one last thing before I finish this attempted reboot: I really enjoy my job. That's not immediately apparent from what I've written above, but I can confirm that I like what I do for a living. I've just moved department as part of my training, so technically 'what I do for a living' has changed. However, generally speaking I think being a commercial lawyer (or training to be one) suits me - the puns are free here, by the way. Enjoying going to work wasn't a guarantee when I started my traineeship so I'm happy to be able to write that.
Actually, I'm happy just to be writing.
I think it's about time that I give this blogging thing a shot again. Many of you will have thought that it was curtains for my blogging career, and so did I. My actual career has taken priority over most things over the last eight or so months, and I'm sad to say that this blog was one of the first things to get left behind.
But I'm proud of what I've got here, and it's probably worth trying to add to it - even if only occasionally.
So what's been so important that I've not had time for writing?
The short answer is, as I said, my job. It demands a lot from me and, as always, I demand a lot from myself. Very rarely do I come home at the end of a day at work having left anything in the office - except occasionally my umbrella. It turns out that being mentally sharp for ten hours takes it out of you.
And so when I get home after sitting in front of a computer all day, the last thing I want to do is sit down in front of another. Instead, the prospect of scraping together some dinner and sidling off to bed is much more attractive. Indeed, I've found that sleep is the cornerstone of the working week because without enough of it emails and draft documents seem that little bit heavier. I'm getting stronger though.
Then there is the sad truth that creativity is hard to come by after spending a day in the concrete jungle. My jokes are weaker (and that's saying something!), my poems are laboured and my blog posts are, well, non-existent. Give me a legal document to draft and I'll be on my way; ask me to write anything personal just now and I'll be chained to the blocks.
But there is hope - I am writing this after all.
And writing is important. The number of times I come across people who can't write properly is staggering. I'm one of the lucky ones because with a couple hundred blog posts behind me I have been honing my writing skills for years. Of course writing emails and drafting documents requires quite different skills to rambling away on here, but most of it is the same: knowing your audience, communicating your ideas, proof reading etc. I'm not infallible, but I can string a sentence together - mostly thanks to this hobby of mine.
So work tires me out and creativity is lacking - maybe it's about time I get over that and get back to writing?
Aside from work, plenty of other things have been going on in my life. I won't bore you with details, but at the extremes I had to take two weeks off work with concussion (or post-concussion syndrome to make it sound cooler) and I've just finished reading Great Expectations. Although completely unrelated, both managed to give me numerous headaches.
I will stop this rambling now but I should say one last thing before I finish this attempted reboot: I really enjoy my job. That's not immediately apparent from what I've written above, but I can confirm that I like what I do for a living. I've just moved department as part of my training, so technically 'what I do for a living' has changed. However, generally speaking I think being a commercial lawyer (or training to be one) suits me - the puns are free here, by the way. Enjoying going to work wasn't a guarantee when I started my traineeship so I'm happy to be able to write that.
Actually, I'm happy just to be writing.
