The Constant Librarian

I am not a prolific blogger; any visitors to my website will have spotted this. In today’s world of sharing, liking and tweeting this may seem a little odd. But here are my reasons:

1. I am a perfectionist. As someone whose career is anchored fundamentally in the use of words, I feel I have to hone my every utterance to be a shining example of language at the peak of its utility and beauty before I can release it to the masses. Naturally this never happens, if only because priority has to be given to paid work rather than my own whimsical meanderings. Like Joseph Grand in Camus’ La Peste, when it comes to the creative expression of my own thoughts, I can never stop editing. Perfection getting in the way of function yet again.
2. I am an introvert. I’ve blogged before about this contrary aspect of my nature, and there is simply no getting away from the fact that, at heart, I simply don’t have an urge to share my innermost thoughts with the world. It’s generally enough that they’re there in my head. Any thoughts that need to be acted upon just get acted upon: I don’t feel the need to have a preamble about what I’m thinking about what I’m planning to get round to doing when I can finally drag myself away from blogging about… oh, wait, the moment has passed. You see?

However, one thing I have found in my first few months as an active freelancer is that I am absolutely rubbish at knowing how to relax and spend my ‘down time’. I used to come home from work, have a glass of wine (or two), cook dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Now I have (slightly) more choice as to when exactly I start/stop work and when I fit in relaxation/domestic chores. I enjoy swimming, going out for walks and running a nice hot bath, but often to enjoy these things fully I need more time than is available to me. I wish I could sit still for half an hour and just chill out, but I seem to be incapable of doing this. So I need to start making some more practical use of my time, something that engages my brain, keeps it busy and stops it wandering off on pathways that simply aren’t helpful. (My inner landscape is a thing of wonder and not a little wilderness. Imagine the blasted heath of Macbeth‘s witches, complete with storms, weirdness and full-on Shakespearian poetry, and mix it up with a substantial dose of Doctor Who navigating the perils of the space-time continuum in a dilapidated Tardis, and you come somewhere close to beginning to understand what it’s like inside my head.)

So I’ve decide to make a conscious effort to to start blogging more, if only to try to cling on to some semblance of what others perceive as reality. It’s quite nerve-racking for me, as one of my biggest fears is that potential clients could read what I have to say and not like it – and that this will impact on the work I get offered. But one of the main reasons I went freelance was to enjoy the, er, freedom that comes from being outside a company-bound environment – and if my thoughts provoke disagreement or disapproval, then I hope I can at least engage in a discussion as to why.

This, then, is my inaugural ‘kick-starting the blog’ post. Read it and digest, or weep. You’re more than welcome to comment below, but please be advised that I haven’t really got the hang of this yet, so if I am a little tardy in responding to any comments, it is nothing personal. I’m just otherwise engaged somewhere in my inner wilderness – quite possibly without a map – and will be with you just as soon as I can reprogramme the teleporter to whisk myself away from those pesky Daleks…