Hey FOLKS! Welcome back to my blog.
This week Iāll be etching angels into blocks of ice and teaching you how avoid smudging your mascara whilst reading Immanuel Kant. I hope youāre all having a simply wonderful time. Iām swell, thank you for asking! Iāve lost three pounds since last week which proves once again that, once your digestion adjusts, the Swarfega diet is cheap, effective and so so deliciousā¦. All the team say a big āHIYAā (at least in size 48pt font), especially Piccadilly Mel whoās currently finishing a new feature on grooming her cactiā¦
Sorry. I canāt keep it up.
Iāve been wondering if I should change the blog over to some kind of lifestyle portal for the young and impressionable. I was intending on providing tips on how to varnish hardwood floors using a q-tip. I want to be that kind of person who becomes an āinfluencerā because of my sunny disposition and willingness to wear tight slacks in a hot yoga video thatās also a Ponzi schemeā¦
Only I canāt. Iām bloody useless.
I came back to the blog this week armed with enthusiasm. My eyes no longer felt like theyāre being rubbed with raw garlic and my brain had been sparking ideas Magnito-style, like I’m Sir Iain McK shackled up to his butt-crack and hoisted twenty feet into the air.
I even had an urge to draw. I had things I wanted to say, lots of subjects to occupy my mind, and a general urge to reach out into the vast silence of the internet and hope to connect with a few like-minded people.
And then I remember how vast and silent the internet really is.
My spirits really need a lift. Iāve been struggling with technology all week, and not just Amazonās ebook dashboard which is confusing the hell out of me. Statcounter ā the system that monitors if anybody reads this blog ā was down over the weekend. In the downtime, I seemed to have lost all my regular readers (or youāve all moved house, which would affect the regular reader count). Maybe it was something I said. My cynicism is not my most charming feature. My numbers have slid so low that even as I sit typing this, I wonder if eyes other than my own and the Chinese bots will ever read it. Did I mention the site is being hammered by the Chinese?
So, it brings me to this point where I start to ponder awful decisions. Is this blog really worth maintaining? Iāve been trying to write something every day, post cartoons when I can. But the amount of effort itās taking is entirely disproportionate to the result. Maybe I should just direct everything into a book.
Probably not.
One of the difficulties, I know, is navigating my emotions between two states. On the one hand, I have a hand in the W&Y podcast which gets a multiple of thousands of listeners an episode. And on the other hand, thereās everything to do with me. The disparity is awful.
Look one way and I vicariously enjoy a view of the world where youāre well liked and you attract listeners, reads, and āfansā.
Looking the other way and I see the small shed where David spends his day refreshing his stats page hoping thereās been at least one visitor since noon yesterday!
Yes, my mood is a bit low today. Iāve had a very productive week, sending little bits of work out into the world, but very little has come back. I know Iāll carry on. I have days like this. Iām sure everybody does. Theyāre just not dumb enough to write about it in a blog post.
