Introduction

Hey gang,

It's nine o'clock on Sunday morning.

So, I'm thinking about getting (back) into writing. There are a number of factors that are stimulating me at this particular moment:

1.) I am reading and my reading is veering towards autobiographies of writers. Murakami, Kafka ... anyone in the literary section of The Telegraph weekend magazine - my parents' subscription, because I would 'obviously' be a Guardian reader ... Oh, and the Beats. Awesome people. Anyway, what is amazing about these stories is that they just went ahead and did it. Murakami was a bar-tender, then, if my memory serves me correctly, one day he just started writing. I suppose that is the thing to do: start.

2.) Starting writing moves on to the next point: the blog. It is surely the way forward. It is accessible - holding Hamford as my inspiration here. I must keep it going. If I keep writing something must happen someday.

I will also add a 'writing' label to my previous compositions.

3.) Job. Teaching: can I keep it up? I keep asking myself that question. For the moment things are going ok; after a week of absolute horror you might get a week of passable success. I've even had a *gasp* 'good day' recently - don't think I've even had one of those before. If I keep writing, writing on the blog, who knows? Maybe one day soemthing will come of it.

I mean to keep in the teaching game for a while at least. Maybe move out over the summer. Next year will be the real test, once NQT is over and I am 'qualified'. Eep. But it point is to keep writing because it will give me hope. Not the God-given hope that I rely on to get through each day, morning and evening and every other concievable time, but the hope that one day I will be able to create something tangeble and say "I did that."

Like that time at uni when I made a 'zine for the Christian Union mission week. It was, I have to say, pretty cool; an anthology of different work from Christian artists, poets and writers. El did some poems for it, poems that you can actually find on her website: ( http://elgruer.com/poems.php ). I made a sort of soap-box section for rants and I put in a short piece voicing my annoyance at people who took down the posters we put up for our Christian events. The good thing about this was that was it did hit home with people. Hearing people saying "Man, I do that!" and thinking that this was aimed souly at them. Not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but it had an impact and it felt amazing to actually do that!

It's sort of the feeling that I get when I 'publish' my posts - although I don't get that gratification of comment (unless of course someone DOES leave a comment - and THAT is exciting). It is still thrills me and THAT is why I must keep going.

That'll do for now.

Peace out and God bless,

SM

Year 2011

Happy new year, everyone!

This is what I did last year: completed PGCE,got a job. That is pretty much it. Not easy, and it took up forever. Now 'the hard part' is done, I gotta get on with it! Still not easy, but I am feeling a bit better about it all. Still have the Sunday afternoon dread, which continues to ruin my Sunday lunch, but having a Bank Holiday tomorrow will help ease me into the week nicely.

Will I stick at it? is the big question. I would like to give it a shot and not cop out too soon. I would at least like to get the hang of it, if that is even possible. Who knows. It is dastardly having A JOB, but someones got to do it... Who knows what the future holds? We can only hang on.

Anyway, God bless you all.

SM