Nicola Vincent-Abnett

Nicola Vincent-Abnett
"Savant" for Solaris, Wild's End, Further Associates of Sherlock Holms, more Wild's End

Wednesday 6 March 2013

All Work and No Play...


...Makes Nik a very dull girl!

It’s true, I tell you.

What’s more, I feel terribly guilty.

A week a go... Was it really a week? I promised that I’d begin a series of exposés about writing and publishing and how a writer gets published, and about how bloody the whole process can be. I still plan to do all of that. The problem is, I planned to have done all of that by now, and yet here I am still not having begun.

I have let you down.

Q: What did the balloon headmaster say to the balloon boy in the balloon school when he found him with a pin?

A: You’ve let me down, you’ve let the school down, but worst of all, you’ve let yourself down!

Badum-tish!

I also promised you all an event report for BL Live 2013... And what an event it was! I had a splendid time, I know the husband had a splendid time, and I hope that all of those who attended had a splendid time, too. Certainly, the other writers and staff members that I spoke to were all hugely excited by the experience, and can’t wait to do it all again at the Horus Heresy Weekender on May 18th.

I didn’t, though, did I? I didn’t give you an event report; I’m barely giving you one now.

I have been remiss. I have been tired, and busy, and I have not found the time to write my blog.

I say, ‘All work and no play...’ and yet the blog doesn’t easily fit into either category. Which is it? Is it work? In which case, I really ought to prioritise it better, and find the time every day to do it, as I had planned to do over a year ago when I began. Or, is it play? In which case, the very fact that I managed to do it more than 300 times in my first year of blogging suggests that I wasn’t working hard enough at my work, and that I found far too much time to play.

If writing is work then perhaps blogging is too; it is, after all, most definitely, writing. If putting myself out into the World and having some sort of presence on the internet, if publicising my writing is work then surely writing my blog counts. Work, then.

On the other hand, I use my blog to talk about all sorts of nonsense that has plenty to do with play, that has plenty to do with me and my thoughts, and sod all to do with work. So, do some blogs count as work and some as play? Does all writing automatically count as work? If that was true then every time I write a greetings card does that count as work? Does the fact that I write every speech for every family event, including birthdays, anniversaries and funerals turn those things into work? Or are they just my contribution to my family? If they’re work, why don’t the other family members pay me for them?

I have no answers, except to say that, sadly for me, right now, everything feels like work, and I wish that it wasn’t so.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall wake up in a more playful frame of mind... or the next day, maybe... or the day after that.

I don’t know when it will be, but, whenever it is, that’s when I’ll begin my exposé, because, trust me, that topic needs some leavening, that stuff needs some humour, some playfulness, a lightness of touch and a twinkle of spirit that I’m just not feeling today.

Forgive me if you have to, and bear with me if you can, and one day, soon, I hope it’ll all be worth the wait.

No comments:

Post a Comment