Spinning Wheels

There’s a fine line between being in a groove and being in a rut. That’s a quote I’ve used before but it’s a good one so I’m recycling it here without any shame whatsoever. I am slightly more ashamed that I seem to have wobbled out of the former and into the latter, and even more embarrassed to be blogging about blogging, because these types of post normally bore me to tears. I promise I’ll keep this short.

  

I’ve just not been feeling it recently, to be blunt. I can’t escape the nagging sense that the recent Charisma Man posts were fairly ill-conceived, and the last thing I wrote that I was even halfway happy with was in January. I was marginally pleased with the Kimigayo thing because I wrote and put it up in a single evening instead of picking over it for days like normal, but then I realized it was essentially just a copy of something I’d already done before. That wouldn’t be so bad if the first attempt hadn’t been markedly better than the second. At what point does a ‘signature style’ tip over into self-plagiarism?

The family situation obviously cuts massively into my time, but that’s not it, I don’t think. Or maybe it is; the kids mean that I’ve got less stuff coming in by way of TV and other media, so there’s less stuff to come out. It’s maybe why this place has been a little book-heavy of late. That’s fine as far as it goes, but not really what I want this blog to be. However, books are the only proper input I’ve got right now, so that’s all I've got to put out. It also doesn’t help that it’s the end of the school year so I’ve been much busier than normal with the students’ assessments and whatnot, but have had much less interaction with the students themselves. And honestly that’s where a lot of ideas come from; the lessons I’d like to give if I thought they’d understand.

This blog’s primary roles are for my own amusement and improvement, which is why I’ve not taken a break, and won’t be. I know myself a little too well by this point so understand that if I don’t maintain a schedule I won’t maintain anything at all. And none of you are obliged to read anything here if it’s not to your taste.

However, a few of you do, and do so regularly. Some of you are even kind enough to have me on your blogrolls, and that’s really why I’m writing this. You’re giving me something of a public endorsement, and while that’s not a pressure exactly it does slightly, ever-so-slightly, dilute my claims that this is only and all about me. If it truly was I’d just keep a private diary.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with it. Sometimes it does feel like I’m essentially spamming your sites, for which I apologise. I’d like to be able to promise an upturn in the very near future, but if I could honestly guarantee that I will write better stuff (or at least stuff I’m happier with) then I’d actually be doing that instead of conducting this self-indulgent hand-wringing.

Or maybe none of you have noticed anything. Or maybe you did but don’t care. Maybe I’m massively overthinking the whole thing.

Which, of course, is kind of the point.