January Blogging Optimism (?)

Jan16

This is to be yet again an attempt to revitalise the Landing Tales blog and to see if it has any life left in it. Last year’s attempt foundered as you, Dear Reader, may have noticed. However, I am not one to give up without one more wrestle with the keyboard. To that end I have a plan of sorts to gee me up and into what I hope will be a sustainable blogging pattern for 2025.

I said a plan ‘of sorts’ because in a way there is no grand plan to lay out for your perusal. My very basic idea is that I will aim simply to write something bookish (or not exactly bookish, as the case may be) and pop it up on the blog without worrying too much about themes, topics, challenges, TBR piles etc. Just getting something, anything written has to be the best way forward for now if I don’t wish to give up entirely and retire the Landing for good after all these years.

As usual in recent years, I have spurned the notion of New Year resolutions, apart from my general aim to read as much as I possibly can. This is as well as continuing to do all the other activities that I enjoy. So the blog initiative falls under this New Year umbrella of ‘keeping on, keeping on’ doing stuff that I value and trying to find time for it all. Let us see if it works…

I was looking back over previous January posts on The Landing and spotted this New Year post from a rather scary twelve years ago about the vexed question of fresh starts, with Janus looking both back to the past year and ahead to the new. I will leave you with that and hope to be back with you soon.

Janus strikes again…

Jan13

I am still trying to get my head around January and I am still working out where I want to go this year (and indeed, how I propose getting there) so Alison Wells’ January Project has provided food for thought. Take a look at Alison’s blog if your mental processes need a gentle kick up the proverbial…

Alison Wells Author

This series of articles running through January will explore ways of keeping our head above water in physical, mental, emotional and creative areas. There will be creative challenges, competitions and giveaways. For the full background see here.

A busy day today so I have just time for a flying post. I saw a link this morning to English actor Benedict Cumberbatch reading John Keats ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky.

The luxuriance of Ode to a Nightingale reminded me of the experience of studying poetry in school, of being immersed in a poem, of committing sections of it to memory, of speaking the words and feeling the rhythm of them, becoming familiar with them. Listening to the reading of Ode to a Nightingale and the nonsense poem Jabberwocky I realised that in my quest to be a writer in the middle of a prosaic family life, I read…

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My New Year Message: Janus

Jan8

Book, books, books…

I was pondering the vexed question of what my first post for 2013 should be: progress report on the Landing Eight; review of last year’s books; looking ahead to this year’s reading or maybe about tackling a new angle in my Reading Challenge.

Finally, I decided to side step all of the above and feature a paragraph that I wrote on a previous New Year for Paragraph Planet:

New Year, New You. Ring out the old and ring in the new. In Janus’s month twixt past and future we try diets, makeovers, new resolutions and evening classes. De-clutter, downsize and de-tox; perhaps try yoga classes or join a gym. Pilates sounds good, there’s a special offer too. Then comes the inevitable backslide into laziness, excuses and over indulgence. That two-faced Janus strikes again. New you, old you, which do you want to be?

The above question was posed and previously published New Year 2011 (and no, I didn’t try the de-tox)

Let me know if you have made any resolutions, literary or otherwise! Drop them in the comment box below.

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a link to a piece I wrote this week for the Irish News Review featuring a couple of Reading and Writing Challenges to give you a little zest…