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I worry about blogging about blogging. I fear that the blog might collapse in itself, unable to stand the introspection and navel-gazing. And then I realise that blogging is all about the navel-gazing, and there’s a whole swathe of blogs that do nothing but talk about blogging.
Hmm. So, on with the post. And I really don’t understand why I’m rambling and procrastinating as my problem is…I just don’t have enough time to write and to blog. Don’t worry readers, this isn’t some bizarre farewell, or unnecessary moan (hopefully not, anyway, but it is Monday…) but I thought it was something worth addressing, as I’m sure it is something that affects many of us from time to time.
In that ideal world we all dream of, I’d have hours to while away, honing sentences, crafting punctuation and creating works of literary art. I love the Oscar Wilde quote, “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” Oh, to have the luxury of that time!
It’s not that I lack ideas, either (‘then why the tired post about lacking time to blog?’ I hear you cry!). I know I’m really lucky in that sense, in that I’ve yet to suffer from any sort of real writer’s block. In the shower, on my commute, at my desk at work, here, there and everywhere, more often than not I’m mulling over ideas for blog posts, or stories or other things I might write. But where to find the time to actually research and then write the bloomin’ things?
Work is a necessary evil. Home life is lovely, really lovely, but awfully busy. Do I lack the discipline and organisation to find the time to write? Or should I scale back outside commitments? Then again, if you should ‘write what you know’, then you should probably get your share of living in, right?
And when I do cram in some writing time, do I give it enough attention? Blogging makes it easy, nay irresistible, to just throw something together and throw it out there. I might snatch a few minutes at the start or end of the working day, or during my lunch hour, or when I get a sit-down of an evening. But do I really give my best? Is there enough quality control? (‘No!’ cries the last exasperated reader left). If I had more time, would I have cut down on the questions in this post?
What do you reckon? How do you find the time to write?
So, Happy Thanksgiving to all you American folks out there. I’m pathetically jealous, what with this being a normal run-of-the-mill workday in the UK. Rather than enjoying day one of a four-day holiday, I’m still a fair way off a normal weekend. Boo.
On Mondays, I generally pick up the International Herald Tribune, and on the back page it lists the national holidays across the world in the coming week. And every week I envy Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Paraguay or wherever else that has a short working week ahead.
From some rooting around (ah, how did we manage before Google?) I’ve discovered that the UK has just eight weekdays off a year, compared to 16 in Italy, 15 in Iceland and 14 in Spain. I think we are due another holiday or two, and it would be wonderful to have one between the August Bank Holiday and Christmas. I’d like a Thanksgiving.
And not just for selfish reasons (although a day of turkey and watching sport sounds pretty much perfect).
Beyond the historical significance (which is obviously limited for a Brit), I think it is particularly appealing to have a day to take stock and think about all there is to be thankful for in your life. I know that I have a lot, and will take a moment to think about that today. It would be wonderful if a day’s work didn’t get in the way of sharing that thanksgiving with others.
The other benefit to Thanksgiving is in ushering in the countdown to Christmas. I’m really rather excited. I’m determined to get in the swing of things this year, and not be a grouchy old Scrooge. Today, there’s a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to look forward to.
Including some corny Christmas posts here, no doubt. You lucky things!
Footballers are increasingly perceived as being removed from the ‘real world’, and countless post-match interviews see players (and indeed managers) making excuses for poor performances. Supporters pay good money to watch bad football, often with no explanation or apology from those concerned afterwards.
Wigan Athletic’s 9-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur yesterday was obviously a very different beast. The best spin doctor in the world couldn’t squirm out of that one.
But even so, the Wigan players have responded in a creditable fashion today. Club captain, Mario Melchiot, announced that Wigan’s players would pay out refunds to each and very Wigan supporter who had made their way down to London yesterday to watch their team.
The statement read, “We feel that as a group of players we badly let down our supporters yesterday, and this is a gesture we have to make and pay them back for their tremendous loyalty.”
How wonderful and novel would it be if all sportsmen responded to bad defeats in this fashion? I’m not suggesting that every team that has a shocker should refund their fans, but it would be refreshing if more sporting professionals took responsibility for a poor performance and apologised to their (often long-suffering) fans. Who, less we forget, pay their wages.
So, what sporting performance would you have liked a refund, or at least an apology, for?
And outside the sporting sphere, do you think we hear the word “sorry” enough?
For those of you new to the blog, I quite often put together a list of sports-related links I’ve enjoyed over the past week. As part of the broadening of this blog’s horizons, I thought I’d put together a more general list this time. I hope it leads you to some interesting corners of the internet, and as always if you have any links to share, please do!
Non-sporting stuff for your enjoyment
Regular commenter and nicest guy on the internet, Steven Harris, has been talking about meeting celebrities, and remembering the time he met a Beatle. You might see in the comments that I have had quite a celeb-spotting week, seeing both Lisa Snowdon and Angela Rippon. Please note, I don’t mix in showbiz circles. Nor do I stalk people off the telly. Honestly.
Another commenter here, Nathan Henrion, has recently published his book for the Kindle. I’m looking forward to hearing how the experiment goes, with such a new and relatively untested medium. I’m going to have to buy the book itself very soon. It’s a steal at 99 cents.
Raven Mack is always worth a read. His lastest post is about pumpkins, and a whole lot more.
Sporting stuff for your enjoyment
The ever-reliable BaseballGB is reviewing the 2009 season a division at a time. Sadly, the verdict of the New York Mets as the “New York Mess” is right on the money.
Tim Lincecum won the Cy Young Award this week, ahead of Chris Carpenter, leading to a wave of controversy among the baseball internet-y fraternity. Wezen Ball serves up a nice little parody of the uproar.
There’s been a lot written about France beating Ireland to go to the World Cup, via Thierry Henry’s hand. Twohundredpercent writes perhaps the most level-headed assessment of events.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks!
I love stationery. Probably a little too much. There. I said it.
I thought I ought to acknowledge this, particularly as, for the first time, stationery got a few mentions on the blog, in my post on writing.
First, there was the Wall Street Journal article, How to Write a Great Novel. Reading through it, it was clear that stationery is pretty central for many writers. It’s not just about scribbling on any old sheet of paper – each writer has their own needs and wants, when it comes to what to actually write on, and write with.
Orhan Pamuk writes in graph-paper notebooks. Hilary Mantel always carries a notebook. Kazuo Ishiguro collects notes in a binder. Michael Ondaatje has a thing for notebooks from Muji. Dan Chaon writes on colour-coded note cards.
Margaret Atwood is perhaps less fussy, scribbling away on napkins, restaurant menus, in the margins of newspapers. (Interlude: Working that way reminds me of an interview with Elvis Costello I read. He said that despite buying many notebooks with the intention of using them for lyric writing, they would often be left unused, as he would end up scrawling his ideas on whatever pieces of paper came to hand. He clearly can be in my Stationery Fan Club, as his intentions are good, but it is interesting that he and Atwood are not tied to a particular method for physically writing their work.)
I was then delighted to see that the world of WordPress has a few stationery fans too. Frances Bean commented, “There was nothing like a fresh compilation notebook and the possibility it holds.” There is definitely something special about that new notebook, ready to be filled. Sometimes it almost seems a shame to write in a good notebook. Almost.
So why do I love stationery? From a very, very young age I enjoyed having paper and pencils. Apparently, before I could write, I would scribble on page upon page, convinced I had written a story, and would then ‘read’ it back to my parents. When I was a little older I’d spend hours writing in A4 pads. Sometimes I’d write stories, sometimes I’d make up football scores, sometimes I’d make up entire discographies of imaginary bands. Paper and pencil was a means of channelling my imagination. I was as happy with a new exercise book as I would be with a bag of sweets.
As an adult I’ve continued to enjoy using stationery, especially notebooks. I’m a real sucker for Moleskine notebooks and have completely fallen for their marketing and stories of famous writers and artists using them in the past. I find them wonderfully tactile, sturdy and just right for carrying wherever I go. They are a bit of luxury, but hardly an extravagant one.
I can also be quite fussy with pens, although so far I’ve shamefully stuck to the disposable type. One day I’ll find the right ‘proper’ pen. One day.
My Significant Other shares this love, luckily for me. We’ll happily mooch around the huge Staples superstore near where we live, or smaller shops we find, like the pen shop we came across whilst holidaying in Eastbourne. As silly as it sounds, enjoying stationery has been a lovely, fun thing for us to share.
I suppose when it comes to me actually writing, with this blog or whatever else, I’m far more likely to use my laptop than pen and paper. But my notebooks are still really important to me. I enjoy having something to hand to jot an idea in, or write a list, or to simply play around with an idea. And there is something more satisfying for me to use a notebook for this, rather than a laptop, or smart phone (not that I have one), when I’m out and about. I look forward to, many years from now, looking through those notebooks and reading those snatches of my thoughts, those snapshots of a past me.
So, do you covet particular items of stationery? If you use pen and paper, are you fussy about the pen and paper you use? Does it depend on what you’re writing? Or where? Or do you think this is all stuff and nonsense?
A big welcome to everybody who has discovered this blog via the ‘Freshly pressed’ section of the WordPress homepage and read my post On Writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell.
It’s been wonderful to have so many new visitors, and so many insightful and thoughtful comments, so thank you all for stopping by. It has been a crazy 24 hours for the blog – there’s been more pageviews in the past day than there had been previously in the total life of this blog, up to the point WordPress kindly gave me a plug.
So, to introduce myself, I’m Steve. I live in London, and have been properly knuckling down with this blog over the past six months or so. If you’ve had a nose about, you’ll see that it has predominantly been a blog focused on sport. However, once I hit 100 posts I decided I’d liked to broaden the subjects I cover here. and really blog about whatever interests me. While I expect there will still be plenty of sporting posts, after my unexpected success (exposure is perhaps a more apt word – but sounds a little icky!) yesterday, I’m definitely going to cover other stuff.
What is on the horizon?
In sport, I’m a big football (soccer) fan, so there will be plenty of coverage and commentary on that. I’ve also over the past few years got more and more into baseball. However, I’ve reached the point where I really want (and probably need) to learn some more. So, I’m planning My Baseball Winter, a series of posts where you can follow me getting to grips with some of the different aspects of the sport, be it the history, the statistics, the culture that surrounds it. We’ll see.
In non-sporting posts, I’m currently reading Kingsley Amis’ Every Day Drinking and have got some fun stuff in mind along those lines on the joys and pitfalls of drinking.
I’m sure to cover music too, be it reviews or more general thought-pieces. I’m sure films, books and other art will get a look in too. You know, the usual stuff.
And finally, after yesterday’s post, more writing on, well, writing. I think it is a fascinating subject and I look forward to exploring it some more.
My biggest aim for this blog is to encourage more and more comments from you guys, so please do feel free to add your thoughts. Any suggestions are very welcome, and your comments so far have certainly enriched this blog no end.
If you fancy subscribing to this blog, here is my RSS feed. Otherwise, I do hope some of you find the time to pop along again at some point, and I’ll do my best to visit every person who has been kind enough to comment.
Thanks again!
Steve
PS Please excuse the dreadful trousers/shorts I’m wearing in the picture. I love the picture as it reminds me of a pretty magical day out. I’m a sentimental old thing, really.
The first of my non-sporting posts on the blog, as trailed in my 100th post. Thank you for indulging me dear readers!
I recently read the Ernest Hemingway book, A Moveable Feast. One thing that was so striking about it was how Hemingway weaves multiple threads into such a short book (140-odd pages), and with such taut prose. For me, there were three distinct elements.
First, it is a postcard, maybe even a love letter, from 1920s Paris. Written with many years hindsight (it was one of the last books Hemingway wrote and was published posthumously), it details his life as a poor, struggling writer in Paris, with a young family. He had simple needs and pleasures, all that Paris seemed to fulfill.
The bookseller told me I’d want to live in Paris after reading the book, and she wasn’t far off. Here is Paris in all its glory, and a life of fine wine, good books and interesting company will eternally appeal. In Paris, a simple potato salad and a cold beer can bring immeasurable joy, as can a day at the races, or fishing at the canal. In Hemingway’s Paris you can be poor and happy.
The second strand, and I’m being a little flippant here, sees the book operate as a 1920s version of Popbitch or Heat, although obviously considerably better written, and perhaps even a little more scandalous in parts. We get Hemingway’s memories of the celebrities of the time, from Ezra Pound to James Joyce, Gertrude Stein to F Scott Fitzgerald. The passages on Fitzgerald are priceless, so I won’t ruin them for you. But you won’t think about Fitzgerald the same way again.
And the third strand is perhaps the most interesting to me. In chronicling his life as a young writer, Hemingway imparts his advice on the art of writing. For me, A Moveable Feast is the most concise and well thought out guide for writing I’ve encountered. One particular piece of advice that I think will stick with me is to always finish a day’s writing with something left to write for tomorrow.
There is also something in the tone of the book that suggests that he looked back at this simpler time as being good for his writing, and for learning his craft. The latter stages of the book perhaps hold a certain regret that life got more complicated. “We were very poor and very happy,” indeed.
But does this romantic idea of writing still exist? The Moveable Feast life will always have a certain pull. I’d love to wander cafés and bars writing, or arising early to watch the day begin whilst plotting my next story.
I think this romantic idea, at least in terms of freedom to write, and to live an exciting, interesting and diverse life does still exist. It’s not Paris in the 1920s, but the Wall Street Journal’s recent piece on how novelists write conjures up many scenarios where writing seems like a very good life. It may be in the routine, or the lack of it. Or in the research, or the opportunity to experiment. It might even be in the choice of stationery (I’m a sucker for stationery, but that is another post for another time).
Malcolm Gladwell’s average day may not have the decadence, the adventure, or indeed the drinking of Hemingway’s Paris, but it still seems like a lovely life to lead, sitting in cafés, searching the libraries and enjoying a great city. A romantic life can be found in the small gestures as much as in the grand acts.
For me, the draw is as much in being a writer, and living that life, as in the writing itself. There is the freedom of having the time to write, and the freedom that sort of life affords. Much better than nine-to-five.
So, in books such as A Moveable Feast, and when reading articles like those linked above, the fascination for me lies as much in what surrounds the writing, as the writing itself. And just think: how wonderful would it be to have the time to develop and indulge a particular set of rituals for writing?
But ultimately, the romance for me in being a writer is in being able to earn money doing something you love, and to do so in any way you choose. Hemingway was a lucky man during his time in Paris, and so are those authors in the Wall Street Journal piece.
And so, wherever a writer may be, they hopefully can find that joy in their lives. And perhaps us amateurs can find that too, even without the security and freedom that a pay cheque ensures. I guess if we didn’t, we wouldn’t write at all.
We’ll always have Hemingway’s Paris, but that is not the only route to happiness and fulfillment.
So, the league programme gets interrupted again by an international break. This weekend sees the first legs of the play-offs to decide the final spots for next year’s World Cup finals. Plus, a fair few meaningless friendlies, including Brazil versus England in Qatar in an exercise to make as much money as possible, and annoy as many players, managers and fans as possible too, by the looks of things.
Here we go with Saturday’s international sport on television for those in the UK…
- New Zealand vs Bahrain starts at 7am on British Eurosport for all you early risers
- Wales vs Scotland is at 3pm on Sky Sports 1
- Russia vs Slovenia is on ESPN from 4pm
- Brazil vs England kicks off at 5pm on ITV1
- Northern Ireland vs Serbia is at 5.30pm on Sky Sports 1
- Republic of Ireland vs France is at 8pm on Sky Sports 1
Plenty of footy then this weekend..fill your boots!
Some potentially good news for non-Sky subscribing cricket fans today, with news that the panel established to recommend the ‘listed events’ that should be available on free-to-air television will propose that the Ashes should rejoin that list.
These so-called ‘crown jewels’ are the sporting events that the British government essentially decide should be made available to all, and so cannot just be shown via a subscription channel, such as Sky Sports.
The Ashes were on this list, but were removed prior to this summer’s series, meaning cricketing fans had to either pay a subscription of around £40 a month, or find somewhere else to watch it.
This development is obviously good news for sports fans – free sport is always a good thing. The cricketing authorities are not so happy. The England and Wales Cricket Board have a £300m deal with Sky that would be at risk, and the terrestrial channels are unlikely to pay anywhere near that amount for broadcasting rights.
Clearly, a loss of income isn’t brilliant for English cricket. But is it the end of the world?
I say no. If anything, the cricketing authorities are potentially making a quick and easy buck at the expense of the future of the game. Sure, that money can be put into grassroots development, but what about the continuing popularity of the game?
Far, far less people saw England defeat Australia this year than in 2005. Potential new converts to the game missed out. The next Andrew Flintoff may well have decided against pursuing his interest in cricket, as it wasn’t there for him to watch this summer. While a sport isn’t on ITV, BBC or Channels 4 or 5, is it really mainstream?
Cricket (and sport in general) needs to look at the bigger picture and make a decision. Take the cash now, or build a stronger, larger long-term following?
A minor milestone for the blog, as this is my 100th post here. In recent days, the blog has also tipped over the 1,000 pageviews mark. Neither are massive achievements by any means, but have certainly given me a just a little bit of pleasure. The blog has limped forward from having extremely sporadic posts read by nobody, to having reasonably regular posts read by at least a few people. And you know what? That’s enough for me.
I have never really had any ambitions when it comes to this blog, but it is always nice to know you’re being read, and especially satisfying to get responses – so thank you to everyone who has ever commented!
Anyway, enough of the Oscar speech, and onto the matters at hand. I’ve decided to treat myself and the blog to a proper domain name, so you can now access the site via http://waituntilnextyear.net. However, the old address, http://waituntilnextyear.wordpress.com will continue to work just as well.
I’ve also been thinking about the content on the site, and how I could improve it and perhaps make it more enjoyable, for me to write, and for you, dear reader, to read!
I’m aware that despite positioning this as a general ’sport’ blog, I’ve only really been covering a couple of sports in any depth. And, to be honest, I only have so much time to watch sport, much to my consternation, and to my Significant Other’s relief.
So, there were two options. I could either focus my efforts further, or alternatively, widen my reach beyond sport and just blog about whatever comes into my head.
I’ve read enough ‘how to blog’ sites to know the former is the sensible option. However, the second option sounds a lot more fun to me. So, while the prime focus will remain on sport, I am going to play around with other subjects from time to time. It might make the blog more messy, it might stunt its growth and put people off, but I reckon it could make things a little more interesting. And that’s a good thing, right?
I do have some ideas about the various directions I’d like to take the blog and my writing in the next few months. I’m thinking of sticking up some writings on music, as we all know the internet needs more half-baked album reviews. I also think that us living in such a fascinating time, with wave upon wave of new technology, is probably worth commenting on. In terms of sport, I might end up writing some posts with me actually learning some stuff, rather than just blithering on with my ill-informed opinions. Oh, and there will be plenty of my usual blithering on with ill-informed opinions. It is what the internet was built for!
So, to round off this ego-post, I’d be delighted to hear any feedback, thoughts on where the blog could go from here, or any suggestions for new content.
Thanks for reading!
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