Sorry, but I can’t face calling them “Reverb” anything. I don’t imagine I’ll stick with “December Dailies”, either, but it’ll do for today. Mind you, on the strength of this question, I may not sticking with doing them, as it has an unpleasant smell of “no I are a proper writter for serios!” about it, and amateurs/fanwriters doing that sets my teeth on edge. Anyway, on with the show.

There are two obvious answers here: the first one being “lots”. I work a day job, I spend time with friends and loved ones, I eat, sleep, shower and occasionally shave. I read, I blog, I take photos. None of these things contribute to my writing. This is the tedious literalist’s answer.

But of course that every last one of those things contributes to my writing, which is the other obvious answer, because at some time or another every experience can inform writing. This is the pretentious wanker’s answer.

The truth, of course is that the only thing that I am certain doesn’t contribute to my writing are those times when I think “Shall I sit down and write? Nah, it’s been a long day, I’ll play computer games/watch TV instead.” It happens less often than it used to (although I did just get savagely hooked on Renaissance Batman Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, so that’s productivity shot for a little while longer), but I do still do it.

Yes, I could eliminate this. But I haven’t yet. Maybe in a few years. And in any case, I don’t do it each day. Things I do each day (or close enough to qualify, anyway), well, I listed them above. Short of “ditch the day job”, I don’t see a lot there that it’d even be useful to ditch.

I know this hasn’t been a very satisfying answer, but it wasn’t a very satisfying prompt (said the shoddy workman). Keep your fingers crossed for some better springboards.

See you tomorrow!

Dreadful title “Reverb”, but I enjoyed something similar I did last year, so here we go with a month of blog posts in December. As before, I reserve the right to ignore or replace any prompts I think are just plain daft. Prompt one challenges me to sum up the last year in one word, explain that choice, and then pick another word for next year.

2010: Inspiration

I’ve a number of friends, old and new, who have directly or indirectly inspired me this year, but none more so than Miranda. I’ll spare you all the gushing stuff I could put here – for all I know, there’ll be a later prompt I can use it for, and I’ll nauseate you all then. For now, I will simply and sincerely say that, by virtue of her own drive and passion she pushes me to do better, for which she has my thanks and more besides.

And one of the ways I’m doing better is that for the first time in years, I have a fiction-writing project I’m excited about – I’m inspired to write. While I’ve mentioned it to a few people, I’m trying not to talk about it too much, and not at all on-line (beyond the odd bit of twitter-based venting which doesn’t count). I’m mostly avoiding talking about it because every time I’ve done that in the past, I’ve dropped the ball, lost interest, or in some other way, failed to bring the thing to fruition. I really don’t want that to happen here, because I love this idea out of all measure, so this is all you’ll hear about it on this blog for now – I have an idea I’m excited about, and I hope it goes well. Shocking stuff, I know, but it’s actually the first time I’ve felt like this in a good few years now. So I’m pleased, and that’ll have to do for now.

And so I need to pick a word for my hopes for next year, and I chose “perspiration”, after Edison’s famous quote. Actually, I don’t think my idea is genius-level, but I’d also quite like to get back into regular exercise next year, so it seems like an apt one to pick, when talking about a year I hope will be filled with productive work, with something nearing completion by the end of it.

See you tomorrow.