Happy Birthday to Blog

Yes, the Charlie Williams Blog is FIVE YEARS OLD today. It's old enough to go to school, learn a difficult instrument like a Stylophone, go clubbing and even vote. Not bad, for a thing started on a whim.

Of course, I have neglected it. What good parent doesn't neglect their child? That's how the child learns independence... although it didn't work in this case. When I neglected it, my blog just sat and did nothing. It didn't even stand on a stool and go rifling through the cupboards for dried pasta. Quite a disappointment.

And then there are the times when I gave up on it. I'm not proud of them. But hey, the adoption agencies were OK when I came back and demanded my offspring be returned to me. At gunpoint.

But what of the manifesto I started this blog with? What came of the early ideals, the youthful optimism? To be quite honest I can't be bothered to trudge through all that crap, so I'll pick one bullet point at random:

• worry about posting about worrying about posting nothing

Have I done that? No, not really, whatever the hell it means. But nor did Blair stick to his election promises.

Of course, I'm blogging this the trad way, on a computer keyboard rather than my newfangled typewriter I have taken to. It just seemed fitting to do it this way. The typecasts have come in late and promised a way forward for the Charlie Williams Blog, like Fortinbras securing the fate of Denmark at the end of Hamlet. Will they see it through another five years? Will the internet even exist in five years?

Tune in again in 2015 to find out. (And at various points between now and then, ideally.)

This blog

I sometimes wonder if I am doing this blogging thing wrong. Maybe if I was doing it right I would talk about every book I read, film I saw or album I listened to. Perhaps I would tell you more about my day-to-day writing life and the ups and downs of the publishing world. Maybe I would expand more on the comic work I am doing, or the screenplays.

But somehow I don't feel inclined to.

Don't take it personally. If I met you in a pub (or anywhere) I would tell you it all, if you wanted to hear it. I don't hide anything when I can see the whites of a person's eyes (as long as they aren't too close together). But I cannot see you. Not only can I not see you, but you're not there. There is no "you" with blogging. Blogging is like going to a prominent place in the High Street, blindfolding yourself and then just shouting. I don't know who is listening. You could be a connoisseur of the Mangel books. Or you could be one of these people who find this blog by searching for the phrase "make her gag".

Then there's the lengthy opinion pieces that I could be doing. I could be railing against the lack of creative rope given to filmmakers. I could be whinging about how bookshops used to have soul (in their buying choices) and didn't see their wares as product so much as cultural artifact. I could be laying into the multitude of authors who write stories with nice, safe round edges and run a mile from dangerous looking sharp angles. I could be explaining to you how much I hate Katy Melua. But there's a reason why I don't.

I am not a critic, a social commentator or any other kind of journalist.

I am a writer of fiction.

So, thank you for continuing to check this blog, dear anonymous reader. And I swear I will have some more fiction for you before the decade is out. In the meantime, don't listen to Katy Melua. And if you're going to see I AM LEGEND, don't read the book first.

AWOL

Of course, the lack of recents posts here is purely so I can come across all mysterious. "I wonder what he's up to?" they'll be thinking. "Maybe he's writing the Great American Novel? Although he isn't American, so that can't be right. Saying that, what if his novel was set in America? Would that be a Great American Novel? Assuming it was great, of course."

But that person isn't very clever, so it doesn't matter what they think. A cleverer person might be thinking: "Hmm... the real gamble is not whether Gordon Brown should go for a snap general election now, but whether he should risk leaving it until next year."

Somewhere between those two, someone is possibly thinking: "I wonder if Charlie is writing something different? Like a screenplay or something? Or maybe a romance. A historical romance. The Great American Historical Romance... written by a Brit but set in Salt Lake City. Or maybe he's getting into poetry? I hear there's good money to be made in poetry these days. Or songwriting. What if he's writing a few lyrics for James Blunt?"

Meanwhile... alpaca bouncers.

Say, friend, you got any more of that good sarsaparilla?

As some of you may have noticed, this is hardly a great era in the history of Charlie Williams Blogging. You could argue that the Capri pictures are great works of art that need to be shared with the world (and personally I hold to that view), but you could also argue that they are shit.

Argumentative little bastard, ain't you?

Anyways, the truth is that I just can't be arsed. You know what I mean? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Be arsed, that is. Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the arse beats you. So, in an effort to break out of this blue-arsed funk, I thought I'd write about it. Here, for your reading pleasure.

News. That always helps, if you want to blog and keep blogging. Well, there is no news. A few things in the oven, but no cakes ready to throw at you just yet. Soon, perhaps. (Come on, you heel-dragging cunts!)

Reviews and stuff are also good and bloggable. And I have seen some top films and read some class books recently. But it's that arse-funk again. The blue one. It's stopping me from sharing my entusiasm.

Another thing people seem to use blogs for is airing their opinions on news and current affairs. Believe me, my opinions are best kept hidden. Ideally some of them should be wrestled to the ground and put in an airtight titanium capsule, then blasted off into the far-reaches of the solar system. Not because they're bad, bad opinions, but because they change so much. They slither and squirm and morph, like something from Trap Door. I'd write something heartfelt and convincing, then read it the next day and think: "But what about the other side?" Ah, that old duality thing.

Nah, fiction's me game, making up stories and shit. Some people have strong opinions, others have strong novels.

The one year itch

This blog is one year old. (Actually the birthday was yesterday, but I wasn't paying attention. Shame on me. Happy birthday blog.) To be honest, I never thought I'd get this far. I started out all wide-eyed and full of ideals. I was joining the blogging revolution and I was going to take the world by storm. Then after you start blogging you quickly come to realise that you have to find interesting things to say now and then, and the fact you can't think of any leads you to reflect on the sad, uninteresting state of your life. Eventually you get sick of this and you kill off the blog, only to meekly resurrect it again when the blogging itch comes. Because that's all it is, really. It's an itch. You think "Hey - I'll blog about that", and then you go ahead and blog about it. You could always just talk about it with someone, but you get no answering back on the blog. Or, if you do, you can just ignore it.

Yay for blogging.

Chaff Off

I was reading this article about a blog that actually made a difference, and then I thought about this blog, the one you're reading now. I'm well aware that I don't really give much of myself here. Let's face it - I try to keep this thing going with little bits of info about any readings I do (or am looking forward to doing), the odd rave about a great book or film, irrelevant posts about 80's music, and a little bit of Hasselhoff.

But the truth is, I don't think I could give any more.

The first reason is time. I do a full-time job as well as writing. I am in fact writing this during my lunch-break (so if there's a lot of typos it's because I didn't have time to check). Then there's the writing itself. It's well reported that blogging is the perfect excuse not to write. I think it's fine for a full-time author to blog, because I can't see how anyone can spend 8 hours a day on a novel alone. But for the rest of us who have about an hour or day tops to get some words down, a blog is somewhat of an indulgence.

The other reason I don't blog much life-changing content is that, like that old Jesus story, the writing part of my brain generates two things: wheat and chaff. And it has two outlets: my novels and this blog. One gets the wheat, the other gets the chaff. Which do you think gets what?

Nevertheless, I will blog on. I really feel there is a place in the world for my chaff. You like it sometimes, right? Come on, admit it - you're a big chaff monster. Hey, I'm quite partial to a bit of chaff myself. Other people's, mind. (What, you think I'm sick?)

Blogmanship

I added some blog links over there on the right.
You might dig them, you might not.
You probably will.
You'd better.
If you don't, these people will get you: