My Writing Year

Is this the last post of 2009? The last post of the noughties? Maybe... I've written more on this blog that last year, less than the previous two. Perhaps it creates its own rhythm?

Its been an odd year in many ways, busy, fast-moving, and, up-to-a-point productive. A lot has happened since a year ago, but also, perhaps not that much. These annual surveys are a bit meaningless I guess, but like the seasons, good to mark their passing.

I had a couple of things published, both online, at Horizon Review, an essay I wrote last year, that, with the adulation for "The Road" growing all the time, seems appropriate and timely in its observations on the contemporary apocalyptic, and the 2 pieces I wrote for Flax Books' "Mostly Truthful." Non-fiction all of these, of course. I enjoyed reading in Lancaster's Storey Institute at the Flax launch, not just because I enjoy reading my work, but because it was such a pleasant environment to do so. An honourable mention as well to the lovely idea that is Everyday Genius, to which I contributed a piece in the Autumn.

Online is the way, one way or another - whether its eBooks, iPhone Apps, or print-on-demand - online facilitates. I have no problems with this, but if new writers have to also find "an audience", and this online presence is their way to it, then one does wonder about publishing as a model? Good writers may be many things but rarely are they good marketeers. Nearly four hundred downloads of my earlier novella "For the want of a gas barbecue" from Feedbooks, I know nothing about this "audience", as the site has such poor social networking characteristics. Soon, before or after the new year, I need to think carefully about improving my own online presence - for the first time, with mobile devices such as iPhones, I think there may well be an audience for writing via the web. I don't think you'd want to read "Wolf Hall" this way, but maybe there's writing better suited to the medium.

I've written poems and fiction this year as well, but in between times, in between things. I need to spend some time completing that which is in draft, and concentrating on what to write next. It may mean prioritising. But for now - for the next two weeks, I'll have a bit of time to reflect on things, package things.

Last post of the year or the decade? Four days left, time enough to change my mind.