I’m doing a couple of things at the moment that have reminded me that I have a blog to do things that other things can’t do. And it’s not nearly as horrible to use as I make up it is.

The first is that I’m using Mastodon and the wider Fediverse quite a lot (isn’t everyone?) and it’s rekindled my ability to post shit quickly and sometimes impulsively in short bursts. One of my resistance points with blogging is that it can so easily seem like I’ve got to write an essay and get it right before hitting “Publish”. And that’s bollocks – it certainly wasn’t true when I started – go back to 2004/5 around here and you will see it very clearly! So I’m here, trying to blog like nobody’s reading… again. Because there are things that I don’t want to pour into my stream in tiny chunks. I do want to be able to take some things a bit slower and more thoughtful and catch up with bigger themes rather than the things that pop into my head and “need” to be said immediately. The open web feels like it’s coming back or rather that we have another chance at building an open web.

The other thing I’m doing is that I gave myself a 30-day challenge at the beginning of November to record four songs that I’ve written and performed over the last twelve years or so and release them. The main aim was to give myself something to focus on every day (you’ve heard that one before) but it has also become a thing in my head where I’ve committed to releasing my best work ever next Thursday and if I don’t then the whole month will have been wasted. Also bollocks. Working consistently is the thing that I find very difficult to maintain but I *have* maintained it for (looks at calendar) 26 days on this project and that’s fantastic already. This too feels like “another chance” – it’s a chance to remember that I am a musician and that I can do this stuff as well as it being a mega learning experience both in technical terms (performance *and* recording) and in being able to commit to making a something in manageable chunks.

And right now, it’s creeping up to midday, so I have to let go of the need to document because there’s a greater need to do the actual work.