Tony Quarrington

When I started this blog eleven months ago one of my key aims was to use it to develop and even showcase my writing.  And I am quite pleased that I have not only been able to do that on a regular basis – with the exception of the summer months for partly understandable reasons – but that I also retain the motivation to build on that in the future.

But I had also hoped to use it for what would appear to be its more customary function – to comment on events and issues in both the private and public spheres.  I am less satisfied with my achievement in that area.

The difficulty I have had has been in balancing the two objectives.  What has happened is that everything I have written, serious and trivial, has been placed on the blog to maintain a steady flow of posts rather than because it naturally belonged there.  There have been a handful of slight pieces but the average post has been nearly 700 words, a figure that I had neither intended nor could have sustained on a two to three times a week basis (the recommended frequency for posting) – other than over a short, concentrated period, as was the case with the travel diary I wrote for the U.S. West Coast trip back in March / April.

My struggle has, in part, been attributable to a disinclination to post anything that does not, at least to my mind, meet a minimum standard of literary quality. To put it more crudely, I don’t just want to put out any old crap.  Whether I have succeeded in that aim is, of course, for my readers to judge.

I don’t see myself resolving this dilemma someday soon, though I’ll keep trying. I have one or two serious writing projects in mind for the New Year, and material from those will only figure on the blog  occasionally for the purposes of showcasing my work. The challenge will then be to keep the flow of interesting posts coming regularly, though that might result in a reduction in both the number of words and literary merit.

This not to suggest for one moment that the average blog does not contain literary merit. There are many brilliantly written blogs out there, a handful of which I subscribe to myself.

So, despite the greater concentration on “proper” writing  in the future, extracts from which will appear periodically on the blog, I will aim to post as least as often, though they may be shorter, slighter pieces than I have found myself churning out in the past.