So here we are – January again. Happy New Year! The last time I wrote a blog post that began with those words was in 2013 (on February 27^th, which was a pretty clear sign that I was falling out of the blogging habit!) so it feels like coming full circle to be writing them again a whole decade later. Where has the time gone?!

I began that other blog in 2007, which feels like a different lifetime now, and was indeed a different writing incarnation, under a different name. Over the next 5 years I wrote almost 300 posts, charting my early years as a published writer against the backdrop of family life during the primary school years. It’s still out there, in a dusty, forgotten corner of the internet, and revisiting it I discovered a post from August 2013, yet again post apologising for not updating more often. 

“I think the main reason for the gradual falling off of my blog habit can be blamed, like lots of my other shortcomings, on twitter. Many of the staggeringly inconsequential things I used to put on here now find an outlet there and are instantly absorbed into its teeming depths. A quick glance at the list of blogs on my sidebar suggests that perhaps other people are doing the same, and that the gentle art of blogging, like letter-writing and taking afternoon tea, is being lost as technology gives us quicker ways to reach out to each other.“

Reading that now raises a wry smile! Little did I know that all these years later I’d be returning to a form of blogging precisely because gentleness is what I miss now that twitter can sometimes feel more like sniper’s alley in some sci-fi dystopia than a Hallmark small-town square. I find I don’t want to chuck words out into the teeming depths any more, or squash thoughts down into 140 characters. The disposableness I embraced so enthusiastically when I joined Twitter in 2010 now seems sort of… I don’t know, wasteful? Which is daft, because its not as if all those words expended on twitter end up littering the ocean or heaped in landfill, like so many Starbucks cups.  They just get swallowed up.

And of course, that’s pretty much the point! It’s the instant connection that twitter does best; the virtual hand squeeze in a difficult day, the swift reply or quick riposte. It’s just that these days I find I’m more inclined to slow and purposeful, in most things. I’m a slow writer, and a slow reader too (endlessly apologising for not having yet got to the books on my TBR pile) and I’ve always felt guilty about it, like it’s a character flaw. It’s certainly an inconvenience, but lately I’ve learned to embrace the slow, and value it. The small, steady glow of a candle, rather than the bright, brief flare of a firework; that’s the energy I’m taking into the new year.

I really enjoyed spending the dreamy, nameless days between Christmas and New Year finishing the ghost story (find it here, for a little while longer at least) and doing it in a way that felt quite different from my usual practice. I think my disapproving inner editor had signed off for the holidays, and I wrote without self-judgement (not sure if that’s a good or bad thing…) and – because I was posting it in instalments – without being able to go back and edit! There are definitely things I will change, but it was interesting to step outside of my comfort zone like that. I also gravitated towards reading ghost stories, and my lovely brother bought me a copy of The Haunting Season, which is a collection of spooky stories by some of my favourite historical authors. Perfect for by the fire and in the bath.

I love Christmas, but as I get older I find I have a special love for January too, in all its spare simplicity. The season of books and mellow soupfulness; of reading, dreaming, planning and writing. I can’t wait to explore its possibilities.