I never set out to be read

This is my one hundredth blog, one hundred articles in one hundred and twenty three days, over forty thousand words, almost half a novel.  I accept that most of it has been rubbish but there are some bits here and there which I have enjoyed and a couple of which I am quite proud.  I’ve had just fewer than two thousand views and some retweets of those where I have broadcast.  I’ve even had some very kind comments.

If you are reading this, however, I thank you but I never set out to be read, I only ever set out to write.

I’ve wanted to write, I’ve needed to write for a long time now but just never got around to it.  Now this is my opportunity to try and develop my style, my craft and hopefully my ability.  Practice makes perfect after all. 

I want to write, I want to see the words that are floating around in my mind appear on the screen in front of me.  I want to sit at a café table, like Hemingway and feel the words flow from my pen onto the paper.  I want to pick up a notebook and scribble down words and phrases.  I want to be inspired to write by the things that I see and the experience that I have. My eldest daughter bought me the notebook that I started to write this in and inside the front cover she wrote ‘Happy writing’ and that is what I am trying to do, just write for the pleasure of it.

I want to write prose, preferably good prose.  I want to write like Turgenev, Calvino, Molina, Bronte, Dickens, Levi and all of the other writers who have inspired me.  Of course I want to write a book, we all have one inside us, a proper book with a hard back and a paper dust jacket, a book with an open type face on acid free paper.  I want to write a book that you can feel the story itching to get out as you pull it off the shelf, a book that smells right and that fills you with excitement as you run your hand across its first virgin page.

But I am a long way away from that now, I’ve just started and I’ve not written anything longer than a few hundred words.  I have ideas for stories but the plots are thin and the characters are not yet brought to light.  I have to work out how to get started and need to set out my plans.

So, here I am, four months into my journey, a hundred steps along the way, writing for fun, writing for its very pleasure, working hard to get some words out but at other times struggling to keep them back.  Above all, I am writing.

If you’ve got this far and are still reading, I thank you but remember, I never set out to be read, I only set out to write.