It’s Over!

So it’s 30 November, the last day of #NaBloPoMo. This is the second year I’ve committed to posting every day in November and, unless anything changes my mind in the next 11 months, it will be the last time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t enjoyed it but for someone like me who doesn’t post to any regular frequency this has been a real challenge. I’ve embraced that challenge and hope that I have published a range of posts that give you an idea of what interests and concerns me, but I want to return now to what passes for me as normality.

Looking back over the past 29 days there have been many moments for me to enjoy, not least that there are now a number of people following my blog who weren’t doing so before. I’m following most of theirs too, and the variety of their content has been a welcome addition to my daily reading. As a very amateur blogger I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to read my ramblings, and ‘likes’ and favourable comments are even better (hint!). That strange, amorphous being that is known as the blogging community (Blogworld? Blogosphere? Blogiverse?) is a wonderful place and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to broaden their horizons, both as a reader and a writer. It gives everyone a voice, in a way that wasn’t possible before the explosion of the internet into our lives some twenty or so years ago. There are many bad things about the internet but I believe that the good far outweighs these. The fact that you are here, reading this, suggests to me that you would agree with this.

Two of my most read, liked and commented posts of the past month were Writing, For Fun and Writing, For More Than Fun. In these, I mentioned my future plans for this blog and my writing in general. The main reason for not wanting to commit myself to #NaBloPoMo again is that I feel very strongly about where I want to take this, and the past month has been a distraction from that. An enjoyable one, undoubtedly, but writing and publishing every day has left me feeling a little drained of enthusiasm for the work I need to do to achieve my goals. So, you heard it here first: here’s the plan…….

December starts tomorrow. This is my favourite month of the whole year, as it is the beginning of the Christmas season for me. I’m not big on decorations, which is just as well as I don’t have room for a tree, but I’ve always loved the anticipation of Christmas, the special feeling that seems to embrace us, and I take delight in attempting to persuade myself out of my everyday agnosticism. Up to and including Christmas Day I’m going to do a number of themed posts, of a largely secular nature. At present, this looks like being either four or five posts, and I don’t have any plans to publish about anything else in this period. This will give me some time to work on the changes I want to make to the look and format of the blog, in readiness for the more concentrated focus I want to give to mental health and retirement matters. The intention is to go live with this in January, assuming I get my act together, that is!

I hope you’ll stick with me for this, and will enjoy what I do as part of your pre-Christmas period. And you are cordially invited to join me on Twitter (@clivechip), Instagram (clivechip) or even become a Facebook friend (Clive Pilcher – I use my proper name for that!). If you do, you’ll see my fourth annual Clivechip Advent Calendar (patent pending 🙂 ), where I post a picture a day to amuse and entertain you. I’ll be adding my new #ChristmasSongADay to this as well: I’ll be sharing some of my favourite Christmas songs, as we should all have a good singsong this month! I hope to see you in one or more of these places.

A final word on #NaBloPoMo. One thing I have so far resisted is to use any of the blogging prompts provided by WordPress, my regular blogging provider, and BlogHer, who run the whole #NaBloPoMo shebang. I guess it’s better late than never, so I’m going to respond to today’s BlogHer prompt, which is:

What do you like to do to celebrate an accomplishment?

I’ll admit to not really understanding how BlogHer works. Apparently, when you ‘save’ a post it interprets that as ‘publish now, and be damned!’ And despite having linked my blog to their site I don’t seem to see my posts appearing anywhere in their collective pages. Oh well, you live and learn! Thank you BlogHer, but I’ll stick with what I know best – and what doesn’t have a sexist name! Anyway, ranting aside, my celebration for having fought my way through the blogging minefield for November is to put my feet up and settle down with one of these:

I’m so rock ‘n’ roll!