Writing to the Moment

I’ve received a lot of feedback about my daily posts when we were in Italy: most of you enjoyed them, and they were fun to write.

It just shows that it’s good to try something different from time to time. Normally most of my blog posts are planned and written in advance. It’s probably the safest way of making sure I’ve something to publish each week, but it lacks the spontaneity of daily posts. There’s a greater sense of immediacy about them: what eighteenth century author Samuel Richardson termed ‘writing to the moment’. It’s not quite the same, as being there, but I hope you felt almost as if you were on holiday with us.

Having done it once, daily posts are something that I’ll try again. We’re off to Rhodes in September, and that seems the perfect opportunity.

For the moment though, I’m going to move back to twice weekly posts. This week I’ll be publishing a review of John Wyndham’s classic sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos. That will appear this Friday, 30th June.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on researching our family history, as I’ve slipped back on this a little. What I really need to do is sit at my desk and work through the research. The trouble is that, although there are times when this is genuinely exciting, a lot of the time family research is a time consuming and methodical slog through thousands of documents. It’s got to be done though: it’s too easy to miss one small detail that can totally derail your efforts.

I think family research makes a better winter activity than a summer one. There are two many other distractions at this time of year. But I’m not going to give up: I’ll just have to try and cultivate some more self discipline.

So it’s back to the desk for me. In the meantime, have a good week.

Regards

Dave