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Writing

Winter of Discontent

Sun setting in the neighborhood.

January turned into a tough month for writing. The main concern is a lack of productivity in writing my autobiography. I’ve written in it on nine days this month for a gain of 1,814 words. Volume two stands at 64,739 words today and is quite rough. While thinking about memories and documents and how they might fit the narrative is part of my time usage, I need to get more words in the draft. Six days remain in January, so I may be able to do improve the editing and word count.

This makes my 23rd post on Journey Home this year. There is more to write about, and once I sit down and write a first paragraph, the rest flows pretty easily. Because of my long experience writing blog posts, this work comes easily and for now I expect to write regular posts. Viewership is up in January.

I expect to deactivate my Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts by the end of the month. I joined FB in 2008 to follow our child. They don’t use it any longer. I am of an age where I experience being alone as many elderly people do. Social media reinforces loneliness for me. I’d rather do things besides social media to address this. We’ll see if I actually pull the plug, yet at the end of the Meta Blackout, I’m not missing those platforms very much.

I continue to spend a lot of time writing carefully worded emails. I am a fan of Gmail because it stores every email written through that platform. For my autobiography, I am reviewing older emails, even before I joined Gmail in 2006, for potential content and history. Email is personal, so I expect there will be more of it when I pull the plug on Meta.

While it is not writing, telephone and video calls have become more important. There are more of them and they have a longer duration. Voice communication is becoming increasingly important.

While the weather continues to be wintry, I spend most time indoors. My reading and writing have increased even if I was discontented about progress on my autobiography. This is a winter of discontent, yet I feel a burning hope for better days… for days when I’m planning my next big writing project.