Tough Getting Back Into the Writing Routine Again!

Shôn Ellerton, January 2, 2025
I hadn’t written a piece for three months because I thought there was always tomorrow to do it.

It’s been three months since I’ve written an article and I can safely say that it’s damned difficult getting into the spirit of writing on a regular basis again. It’s almost like I had developed some sort of writer’s block, although I’ve got plenty of stuff to write about on my mind. From 2017 on, I’d say, on average, I’ve churned out an article every fortnight. I may have had several consecutive days with a new piece or a month or two between, but on average, every two weeks.

Many ask me what I write about and why.

For me, writing is a way to offload and scribe one’s thoughts and recollections. I recently did an AI search on my writings and quite accurately, the results established that I concentrated on a myriad of social issues, hobbies, workplace experiences, and other personal recollections.

Social issues encompass anything from schools banning peanut butter to outrageously stupid laws being put into place like Australia’s failed attempt to make any cash transaction greater than ten thousand dollars illegal. Presumably a long term plan to phase out cash. Not to save money for printing it, but because cash transactions are frustrating government bureaucrats because they are not traceable.

Let’s face it. Most, but not all, politicians seem to be generally ill-informed, corruptible, and greedy. Generally, they’re not stupid despite many who claim they are. They know what they want and does it really matter if a new initiative works or not? Either way, during the whole legislative process, money is flooding into their coffers to create new administrations and committees to run these schemes. One perfect example is Australia’s recent passing of a bill of sheer madness to ban social media for anyone under sixteen. Anyone with any common sense and an iota of intelligence knows that this is destined to fail. As for the failed referendum to alter Australia’s constitution to cater for the so-called virtue-signalling woke initiative known as The Voice, this cost the taxpayers around four hundred million dollars. Money that could have spent a little more wisely for the indigenous community.

Some of the more controversial pieces I’ve written have attracted both praise and ire, particularly during the pandemic. I’ll never forget the critics who denounced the way I praised Sweden for its common-sense approach during the pandemic nor those who criticised me for making fun of Biden, which, in my living history, has been the worst president of the United States. Afghanistan’s disastrous withdrawal of US troops during Biden’s first year of power galvanised my lowly opinion of him.

Now, whether I should play the ‘vindication card’ or not, most of those who pointed the accusatory finger at my outspoken opinions have fell oddly silent during the last couple of years when it turned out that my controversial writings back then have now become quite ordinary and accepted by the mainstream.

When it comes to backtracking or reviewing what I wrote about in the past, I seldom make any changes, and if I do, they are usually grammatical. I write in the raw as they say with little in the way of editing or post-polishing. Which, of course, begs the question. Do I remove or edit controversial pieces which have proved to be wrong or for those which I have changed my opinions? The answer is generally no and for all the pieces I’ve created, I stand by for what I had written. The only time I backtracked on one of my opinions is when I wrote about the requirement for kids to wear uniforms when they attend school. At first, I didn’t like the idea, having gone to public school in the United States where uniforms are not generally worn. However, I altered my opinion when I found it actually easier when my son started to go to school because there is no stigma of choosing the right set of clothes. But instead of removing or altering the piece I wrote, I created a second article instead.

Writing about my work and personal experiences is also satisfying because it is the perfect way to extract those memories and even build upon them. All of us have so many memories and experiences, some good and some bad, but so many of them become lost in the cobwebs and only, by chance, tend to reveal themselves through some random chance when something triggers them.

Ultimately, for me, writing is the mechanism to carve, mark, and engrave my thoughts for those who might stumble upon them after I leave this mortal coil. My son, who will turn ten this year, has already stumbled upon some of my funnier stories on the Internet and proudly showed them to some of his friends.

The Internet never forgets!

But back in the old days before computers, it was different. Writings were handwritten or typed. Whether they were in the form of diaries or manuscripts, most tend to be lost forever, residing in old attics or thrown away. Even published books may become forgotten or almost impossible to find. I still have a box of diaries handwritten in German from my mother’s father which I’ve not had a look at in earnest. My other late grandfather had an interesting life and I managed to come across some of his typewritten pages about his life which I immortalised by publishing on the Internet.

I don’t have a specific subject throughout my writings, but rather, anything which pops in my head. And that could happen anytime and anyplace. During a run, or just about to go to sleep, or pondering something whilst driving my car. The important tip here is to make a quick note of it, which I do on my phone, because I will most certainly forget about it in a couple of hours’ time. But the problem is this. I have nearly four hundred topic points on my phone and they build up far quicker than I can pump out a piece for each one.

One of the main culprits for not keeping up is that I often get carried away by adding extra material to the article or get far too detailed. Some of my longer articles are well in the six to ten thousand word territory, which, even for me, is a big stretch to read through. As for those who want a quick and concise article, or those used to scrolling through social media posts, my longer writings probably don’t get much of a seeing to.

Taking some advice from other writers, it seems that writing more frequently and writing shorter articles around the thousand-word mark is the way to go. But it takes discipline to do this. Also, there is the time needed to do a little proofreading, formatting it, finding a suitable header photograph, and publishing it on the Internet.

Is it worth it?

Certainly not financially as I’m not doing it for monetary gain, but I have been able to improve on my writing skills and the speed in being able to knock something out in less time, an important skill within many professions.

In the end, I enjoy the moment I click the ‘publish’ button and the whole world is able to read it.