Tag Archives: writing practice

3,419

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Visit of the Russian Naval Squadron to Toulon (1893)

It’s not a significant number by any means, but it does mean I’ve written 3,418 previous blog posts. Mostly they have been inconsequential, but that’s not what is important. What is important is that it has enabled me to practice my writing, and I have been able to chat to some interesting people along the way. Nothing in life is ever wasted. The ability to rattle out 250-350 words on nothing of any importance, for instance, would be vital if I were a journalist, and is also quite useful for a man who write haibun.

I’ve just done another post for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire, and am just getting into my rhythm. At the moment I am actually able to write more than we need for my contribution to the Facebook page. The President write something nearly every week, on classic numismatic items – mainly ancient coins, and I do something nearly every week on the less serious side – plastic transport tokens being one of the more recent ones.

Centenary of the railways in Britain (1830 – 1930)

having had another reasonably industrious day, I am feeling better about things, even if I have had to write an entirely new outline for the Miniature Medal talk. The ideal talk, to my mind, avoids assuming that everyone is as fascinated by the subject as I am, it does not batter people with facts, and it falls short of being an hour long. Forty minutes is plenty. You can then have questions, a chat and all get home still feeling like you have the use of your legs.

The chairs in the meeting room are hard plastic and an hour is usually long enough for me to start feeling numb, at which point I find my legs feel old for the rest of the evening. You want to atlk for an hour – you provide me with a chair that has a cushion.

Miniature Medals – the subject of my next talk

Apples

A Few Thoughts of No Importance

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I think I’ve been thinking too much. This is particularly in relation to my blog posts, where it’s a lot easier just to throw a lot of words at the page and have done with it. Trying to have a beginning, an end and something sensible in the middle tends to make it harder for me to work. Add laziness and disorganisation and this is why I am no longer blogging regularly.

As the lucrative offers from newspapers and book publishers seem slow in arriving, and as my real followers seem fairly fixed, I’m clearly not going to gain much from quality writing. If you are still with me after all this time you are clearly not difficult to please, and aren’t expecting much in the way of insight, so I am going to concentrate on the other reason I blog – to attain fluency of thought and writing. This is meant to be training for writing poetry, and I’m worried that my current lack of poetry is rooted in my lack of regular posting.

I’m now going to attempt to prove this link by writing regularly, and see if the poetry returns. If it doesn’t, I will have to come up with a new theory. It’s easy enough, theories, just like many things, are merely words thrown onto paper or a computer screen.

Oher news today is that we have had Number One son for the day as he is travelling from Manchester to Norwich, and we watched Elton John at Glastonbury. He’s doing alright for 76, but if I had his money I think I’d just retire. It was, however, nice to see a multi-millionaire superstar who was having trouble with ill-fitting trousers. I spotted this, and he mentioned it later in the set. Bad enough having gold foil trousers, but even worse if they won’t stay up properly.

 

How do you plan your time?

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I’ve been home for four hours. In that time I’ve read and commented on 10 posts from four bloggers, spoken to my sister, washed up (yes, I know I’m a slob) and cooked. Tea is nearly ready, though I have exploded a baked potato in the oven.

It doesn’t seem a lot for four hours. I’m never going to become a world class poet at this rate. I’m not even going to become a mediocre poet at this rate as I haven’t written anything apart from a few notes today. Well, I did answer some work emails and load four items onto eBay, but there was a distinct lack of poetry associated with all that.

The most complicated word I used was iconic, which is almost obligatory these days if you are selling a Winston Churchill Medallion.

We had a chicken curry made with a spice kit last night – grilled marinaded chicken breasts with rice and yoghurt dressing. The chicken was good, though messy to prepare, but the rice was not impressive. I couldn’t actually detect any flavour in it, though that may have been my fault for using brown rise instead of white.

The yoghurt dressing was good to. Two out of three ain’t bad, as they say. Maybe I will make meatloaf later this week.

Tonight it was Cornish Pasty with beans and baked potato. It wasn’t sophisticated but I did enjoy it.

We had crumble for the last two nights, made with plums from the garden tree. I see Julia has brought some apples home today so I’m hoping for apple crumble later this week. Tomorrow we will probably have fried rice with courgettes. We have plenty of courgettes – green ones, yellow one and ones that think they are marrows.

The car is in for servicing and MOT tomorrow, which seems to get more expensive every year. If I’d had my MOT in July I would have been given a 6 month extension, but as it’s in August I have to have it as normal. Ah well, it’s the same the whole world over, ain’t that a blooming shame – it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure and the poor wot gets the blame. Or words to that effect.

A final thought – according to Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 she has her blog posts planned out until 20th September. The woman must be a machine – I have a couple of ideas noted for future use, but when I started writing this I didn’t know what I was going to write about when I started and wasn’t sure how I was going to finish it.

How do you plan your blog?

 

selective focus photo of grey cat

Photo by Kirsten Bu00fchne on Pexels.com

I thought I’d use the cats again today as they are generally acceptable, and because I’m too lazy to find new shots.