Sabbatical

I'm taking a break - a sabbatical, if you will. Not from actual work, more's the pity, but from here. Don't worry, if any of you were; I've put in a bit of a shift lately, writing enough scheduled posts to keep New Amusements ticking over for 2024. That's not to say I definitely won't write anything new during the year, far from it, it just means that I've hopefully removed the pressure I often put on myself to blog something (which has sometimes meant I've blogged anything, with very little quality control). And I will still read and reply to all comments. I've just bought myself twelve months without having to think of what to write, that's all.

I'm also hoping that reclaiming the free time that I would normally spend blogging might actually give me some headspace and impetus to get back to fiction-writing. Please feel free to kick my arse if, in twelve months, I'm still not back on that particular horse.

The other observation I need to make here is how much in awe I am of people who blog every day. I know I've been doing this for quite a long time, coming up on nineteen years, but I've never been prolific. Scheduling 50-odd posts for 2024 has really taken it out of me, despite the fact that some of the posts are - spoiler alert - quite brief. How some do it every day, and at length, I don't know. Cap well and truly doffed.

I should probably write a disclaimer too. The trouble with scheduling posts in advance, especially up to a year in advance, is that things change - events conspire to render what you've written either wrong, out-dated*, even offensive. What if I blog about Person X and am critical of them, schedule the post for a future date, and then they go and die the day before publication? That's not going to age well, is it? Although I'm not sure how something can age in advance, but that's a question of semantics, I guess. So go easy on me, basically, if future posts are somehow wrong or insensitive or something else bad. Maybe I should go through them all and add a "Written and scheduled in December '23" footnote.

Anyway, bottom line, I'm still here and hopefully nobody will notice the difference. And I'll still be reading, and commenting on, all the usual blogs.

New Years Resolution by Camera Obscura seems an appropriate way to sign off with, especially given the opening lines. Happy new year, everyone. Have a good one.

* Some would say everything I've ever written on this blog is out-dated ... and they'd probably have a point.