Firstly blessed Samhain (Halloween if you will) This week’s Sunday snaps are from the Dartington Hall Estate. I’d decided it’s a perfect opportunity to test my new camera out, and grab a coffee after an appointment.
Coffee & a camera, can’t beat it
What’s one piece of travel advice you always follow?
If I had to give just one piece of travel advice, it would be this.
Make an effort to learn a little of the local language and culture before you go.
Notice I said a little.
I’m not suggesting you need to complete a university degree in linguistics before booking your flights. Nor am I suggesting you need to arrive sounding like you were born in Oslo or Reykjavik.
Trust me, I’ve tried.
Norwegian and Icelandic have both featured on my list of languages I’ve attempted to get my head around. How successful have I been?
Well, let’s just say I probably made a bit of a pig’s ear of it.
But that’s not really the point, is it?
The point is that you try.
There’s something rather lovely about making the effort to say hello, please, thank you, or even attempting to order something without completely butchering the pronunciation.
Although, in my case, butchering the pronunciation is probably a distinct possibility.
Still, most people appreciate the effort. You’re showing them that you recognise their country is more than a backdrop for your holiday photographs. It’s their home. Their culture. Their history. Their everyday life.
And you’ve taken a little time out of your own life to understand it.
That matters.
Of course, learning a few words is only part of it.
Take the time to understand local customs, too. Find out what’s considered polite, what might cause offence, and how people go about their daily lives. Try the local food. Visit somewhere beyond the obvious tourist attractions. Listen to people when they tell you about their home.
You might discover something wonderful.
Or you might discover that the local delicacy isn’t quite to your taste.
It happens.
But at least you tried.
I think we sometimes forget that travelling isn’t just about seeing places. It’s about experiencing them, even if only for a short time.
And you don’t need to be fluent to do that.
You don’t need perfect grammar, an impressive vocabulary, or the ability to hold a philosophical debate over dinner.
You just need a little curiosity, a bit of humility, and the willingness to look slightly silly now and then.
Which, given my attempts at Norwegian and Icelandic, is something I can manage quite comfortably.
So, if you’re heading abroad, learn a few words. Read a little about the culture. Be respectful. Be curious. And don’t be afraid of getting it wrong.
Because the locals might not remember your accent.
They might not remember your name.
But there’s a good chance they’ll remember that you tried.
And sometimes, that small effort makes all the difference.
Stay safe,
Bc
What was your first ever videogame?
There’s a question guaranteed to send anyone of a certain age spiralling back into the mists of time, when gaming meant a television, a cassette player, a rubber-keyed computer and an almost religious belief that, if you waited long enough, something would eventually happen.
What was your first ever videogame?
For many of us, the answer was probably Horace Goes Skiing. Or perhaps it was one of those games you spent hours typing into a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, carefully copying lines of code from a magazine, desperately hoping you hadn’t missed a comma, a number or one of those mysterious little symbols that could bring the whole thing crashing down.
Either way, getting to the actual game was an adventure in itself.
If you were lucky enough to own a Spectrum, you’ll remember the ritual. You connected the cassette player, typed LOAD "", pressed Enter and hit Play. Then you waited.
And waited.
And listened to that extraordinary electronic noise that sounded like a robot having an argument with a fax machine.
There was always that moment when you wondered whether it was working. Was the volume too high? Too low? Had the tape stretched? Was the computer about to reward your patience, or were you going to have to rewind the cassette and start all over again?
You could make a cup of tea in the time it took some games to load. You could probably make the tea, drink it and wash the cup before the title screen appeared.
And heaven help you if the game failed at 99%.
That wasn’t a minor inconvenience. That was a personal tragedy.
Enter Horace
For those of us who remember him, Horace Goes Skiing was a classic of its time. Released in the early eighties, it offered the chance to guide our unfortunate hero across a busy road, hire his skis and head for the slopes.
Simple enough, you might think. Except that crossing the road was a challenge in itself, and every unfortunate collision ate into Horace’s limited funds. You could spend more time trying to reach the ski hut than actually skiing.
It was maddening. It was addictive. And when you finally got going, it felt like you’d achieved something genuinely worthwhile.
Which, in fairness, you had. You’d survived the loading process, mastered the controls and negotiated a road system that would have given the average driving examiner nightmares.
And if you crashed? Well, you had another go.
There was no hand-holding, no friendly tutorial explaining what to do next, no convenient checkpoint waiting just around the corner. You learned by playing, failing and playing again. Sometimes you learned by shouting at the screen.
Mostly, you learned that trees were not your friends.
The Games We Built Ourselves
Of course, not everyone had a cassette with a shiny label and proper instructions.
Some of us had a magazine, a keyboard and an unhealthy amount of optimism.
You’d sit there typing in a program, line after line, convinced you were doing something terribly clever. And you were, to be fair. The Spectrum was a wonderful little machine, and learning to make it do things felt a bit like having your own personal magic box.
But there was a catch.
One typo.
One missing line.
One misplaced character.
And suddenly, instead of a glorious new game, you had a screen full of error messages and an afternoon’s work to do all over again.
Still, there was something special about it. You weren’t just playing games. You were learning how they worked, even if you didn’t fully appreciate it at the time.
And when you finally got the thing running?
Blimey.
You’d practically invented the internet.
Well, not quite. But you know what I mean.
Here’s the thing that really strikes me when I think back to those early gaming days.
There were no save points.
You didn’t get to save your progress before the difficult bit. There was no autosave, no checkpoint, no helpful message telling you that your progress had been preserved.
If you ran out of lives, that was it.
If you switched the computer off, that was it.
And if Mum decided she’d had enough of the television being occupied and wanted to watch something else, well, your gaming career had just been terminated without consultation.
You started again.
And again.
And again.
We became remarkably good at accepting failure, dusting ourselves off and having another go. Perhaps that’s one of the things those old games taught us without us even realising it.
Although, in fairness, some of us also learned some rather colourful language.
I still think there’s something wonderful about those early games. Not because they were technically superior to what we have today, but because of what they represented.
They were new.
They were exciting.
They were ours.
We didn’t have online guides, walkthrough videos or somebody on YouTube explaining the entire game before we’d even loaded it. We figured things out ourselves, usually through trial and error, and occasionally through sheer bloody-minded determination.
Today, we have games with extraordinary graphics, enormous open worlds, cinematic storytelling and enough features to fill a small instruction manual.
And they’re brilliant.
But sometimes I wonder whether we’ve lost a little of that old magic.
That feeling of finally getting a game to load after half an hour of electronic screeching. That little thrill when you discovered how to get past a difficult section. That sense of achievement when you’d spent an entire afternoon trying to beat your previous score.
No downloads.
No day-one patches.
No subscription required to access your own memories.
Just a computer, a cassette tape and a few hours to spare.
And if the game crashed?
Well, you learned to live with disappointment.
Or you threatened to throw the Spectrum out of the window.
Usually both.
For me, the question isn’t simply which game came first. It’s about remembering a time when playing a videogame was an event in itself.
Maybe it was Horace Goes Skiing. Maybe it was Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, or one of those home-coded adventures that took longer to type in than they did to play.
Perhaps your first game wasn’t on a Spectrum at all. Maybe it was an Atari, a Commodore 64, a BBC Micro or something else entirely.
Whatever it was, I’d wager you remember more about the experience than you do about the graphics.
Because those games weren’t just games.
They were afternoons spent with friends, arguments over whose turn it was, the frustration of losing your progress and the excitement of discovering something new.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, a generation of us became gamers.
Stay safe.
BC
Do you set personal goals for yourself?
Ah, goals.
Those things we’re apparently supposed to set ourselves so we can become more productive, more successful, and generally a better version of ourselves.
You know the sort of thing.
Attend a motivational seminar, buy a rather expensive notebook, write down your five-year plan, and spend the next twelve months feeling guilty because life got in the way.
Yeah… I’ve never really gone in for all that.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire people who set themselves goals and work hard to achieve them. If that’s your thing, crack on. Good for you.
It’s just never really been my cup of tea.
I’ve never been particularly interested in turning my life into a spreadsheet, complete with targets, deadlines, and little boxes to tick.
I’m a poet, a photographer, and a professional rambler. I spend a good deal of my time scribbling words, taking photographs, and generally following whatever creative rabbit hole happens to catch my attention.
And honestly?
I quite like it that way.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to grow.
Of course I do.
I’d love to see my poetry reach more people. I’d love for my photography to find its way in front of a few more pairs of eyes. I’d love for the things I create to connect with somebody, somewhere, who might need them.
Who wouldn’t?
There’s something rather lovely about putting a little piece of yourself out into the world and discovering that somebody, somewhere, has connected with it.
Especially when that little piece of yourself started life as a few scribbles in your head.
But I’ve never felt the need to turn that desire into some grand, all-singing, all-dancing personal development programme.
No five-year plan.
No motivational posters telling me I can achieve anything if I just believe hard enough.
And absolutely no standing in front of a mirror at six in the morning, telling myself I’m going to conquer the world.
The neighbours would probably worry.
Besides, I’ve come to realise that life doesn’t always work according to plan. Sometimes things go brilliantly, sometimes they go spectacularly pear-shaped, and sometimes you spend an afternoon wondering what on earth you went into the kitchen for.
That’s life.
So, do I have a goal?
Well, I suppose I do.
Although calling it a goal might be stretching the definition somewhat.
At the end of every month, I have a little look at the number of interactions my creative work has received.
That’s it.
Nothing complicated.
My goal, if you can call it that, is simply to do as well as I did the previous month.
Not necessarily better.
Just the same would do nicely.
If the numbers go up, which they usually do, then that’s a lovely little bonus.
If they don’t?
I’m not going to beat myself up because a particular post didn’t reach as many people as the one before it.
Nor am I going to decide that my work has somehow become less valuable because an algorithm has had a funny five minutes.
After all, numbers can tell you how many people interacted with something.
They can’t always tell you what it meant to them.
And that’s an important distinction.
Because somewhere out there, somebody might read a poem of mine and feel a little less alone.
Somebody might look at a photograph and see something beautiful in an otherwise ordinary day.
Somebody might read one of these ramblings, have a little chuckle, or find a thought that stays with them long after they’ve closed the page.
I’ll probably never know about most of those moments.
And that’s okay.
I don’t need to.
If something I’ve created makes a difference to even one person, then there’s value in that which no monthly statistic can properly measure.
Perhaps that’s the thing about creativity.
You can spend hours worrying about reach, engagement, followers, likes, shares, and all the other things the internet has taught us we’re supposed to care about.
Or you can get on with creating things because you enjoy doing it, because you have something to say, or because sometimes putting words on a page is simply how you make sense of the world.
Personally, I’ll take the second option.
I’ll keep writing.
I’ll keep taking photographs.
I’ll keep sharing whatever happens to fall out of my head and onto the page.
And if more people find their way here along the way, then that’s wonderful.
But I’m not going to spend my life chasing a number.
Life’s a journey, after all.
And I’d rather enjoy the scenery than spend the entire trip staring at the satnav, worrying whether I’m getting there quickly enough.
Which brings me to something I really do want to say.
To those of you on the other side of this screen…
Thank you. Genuinely.
Whether you’ve been reading my scribbles for years or you’ve only stumbled across one of my ramblings today, I’m grateful you’re here.
Every comment, every like, every share, every message, and every moment you’ve taken out of your day to read something I’ve written means more than you probably realise.
I know the internet is a busy place. There’s an almost endless supply of things demanding our attention, and yet you’ve chosen to spend a little of your time here.
With me.
And that genuinely touches me.
I started writing because I had things I needed to get out of my head. Over the years, those scribbles have grown into something much bigger than I ever expected.
And the fact that other people have found something in them?
Well, that’s a rather lovely bonus, isn’t it?
So, no, I don’t have a grand plan for world domination.
I’m not aiming to become the next big thing.
I’m not sitting here plotting how to turn every waking moment into an opportunity for personal growth.
I’m just Bob.
An old soul with a head full of thoughts, a camera, a keyboard, and an apparently endless supply of things to ramble about.
I’ll keep doing what I do.
Creating, and keep putting my work out into the world.
And at the end of each month, I’ll have a little look at those numbers and see how things are going.
If they’re up, I’ll do an extra happy dance.
If they’re the same, I’ll be very happy.
And if they’re down?
Well, there’s always next month.
Because perhaps the point isn’t to keep setting bigger and bigger goals until we’re so busy chasing the next achievement that we forget to appreciate what we’ve already got.
Perhaps it’s about enjoying what we’re doing, appreciating the people who come along for the ride, and being grateful that we get to do it in the first place.
At least, that’s how I see it.
And once again, to everyone who reads, shares, comments, or simply stops by for a little while…
Thank you.
You’re appreciated more than you know.
Stay safe,
Bc
I’m sure you’re all aware that, apart from my twenty-odd years as a fully qualified scribbleologist (poet to those who prefer the technical terminology), I’ve also had a longstanding love affair with photography. Words have always been my way of capturing the world, but lately I’ve discovered that a camera can do much the same thing — only with fewer syllables and considerably less punctuation.
And blimey, things seem to be gathering pace!
Since buying my first DSLR back in October last year, I’ve photographed a wedding, covered two Pride events (one of them as the main photographer, no less), and had the pleasure of photographing an evening fundraiser featuring the legendary Howard Jones. Yes, that Howard Jones. Eighties musical royalty, and me with a camera trying to look as though I know exactly what I’m doing.
Next up, I’ve another shoot this month at a poetry event hosted by local celebrity Tom Hirons. Which means I’ll be swapping between two of my favourite worlds: the one where people perform their words, and the one where I attempt to capture the moment before it disappears into the ether.
When I bought that camera, I rather fancied I’d take a few photographs, enjoy myself, and perhaps produce the occasional image that didn’t require an apology. I didn’t quite anticipate things moving along quite so quickly.
But here we are. One minute you’re experimenting with a new bit of kit, the next you’re photographing weddings, Pride celebrations and musical legends, with more opportunities popping up on the horizon.
It’s funny how life sometimes opens a door when you’re busy looking through a viewfinder.
So, between scribbling poems, chasing light and trying to remember which button does what, it seems this particular adventure is gathering momentum.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt after twenty-plus years of playing with words, it’s this: you never really know where a creative itch might lead you.
I’d better keep the batteries charged, then. It looks like I’m going to need them!
This last picture is a special one. It was sent to me by a fellow photographer and Pride volunteer. It’s nice to see things from the outside.
So I’d like to ask you to send me one of your favourite pictures and why it’s special to
BobChristianpoetry@gmail.com
I’d like to share it on my guest slot on Sunday snaps
Stay safe
Bc
Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
Mrs Bob.
There really isn’t anyone else who comes close.
I suppose the obvious answer would be that she’s taught me about love.
And she has.
She’s taught me about patience.
Definitely that.
Although, to be fair, she’s probably had to teach me more about patience than most people would consider reasonable.
But the biggest thing Mrs Bob has taught me is actually about myself.
She’s allowed me to grow.
And, let’s be honest, she’s allowed me to mature into the person I am today.
I wasn’t a finished product when we met.
Far from it.
I was still figuring out who I was, what I wanted, and probably making far more mistakes than I’d care to admit.
Some of those mistakes were mine.
Some were lessons I simply hadn’t learned yet.
And some were things I didn’t even realise I needed to learn.
Mrs Bob never tried to turn me into somebody else.
She just gave me the space to become more myself.
And I think there’s a huge difference between those two things.
She’s the calm to my fire.
Where I can be passionate, impulsive, stubborn and occasionally a complete pain in the arse, she has this remarkable ability to bring me back down to earth.
Not by changing me.
Not by trying to silence me.
Just by being there.
Sometimes that’s all you need.
Someone who knows when to let you burn brightly…
And when to quietly remind you that perhaps setting fire to everything isn’t the best solution.
Over the years, she’s seen the versions of me that I’m proud of.
And the versions I’m not.
She’s seen the good days.
The bad days.
The days where I’ve been convinced I had everything figured out.
And the days where I quite clearly didn’t have a bloody clue.
And somehow, through all of that, she’s still here.
Still beside me.
Still encouraging me to grow.
Still putting up with me.
Which, frankly, deserves some sort of medal.
I often think we underestimate what it means to really know another person.
Not just knowing their favourite food or what makes them laugh.
But knowing their fears.
Their insecurities.
Their strengths.
Their weaknesses.
Knowing what they’re capable of, even when they don’t know themselves.
Mrs Bob has done that for me.
She’s helped me see parts of myself that I couldn’t see.
She’s encouraged me when I doubted myself.
She’s challenged me when I needed challenging.
And she’s given me the freedom to become the person I was supposed to be.
So, which relationship has taught me the most about myself?
That’s easy.
Mrs Bob.
Because I’m not the same man I was when we first met.
I’m calmer.
I’m more comfortable in my own skin.
I’ve learned that vulnerability isn’t weakness.
I’ve learned that asking for help doesn’t make you less of a man.
And I’ve learned that sometimes the person who helps you become yourself isn’t the person who tells you who to be.
It’s the person who stands beside you while you work it out.
I’m the person I am today because of a lot of people, a lot of experiences, a lot of mistakes and a ridiculous number of lessons.
But Mrs Bob?
She’s been there for the whole bloody journey.
And I wouldn’t want to have travelled it with anyone else.
I Ducking love you
Stay safe,
Bc
If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
If I’m being completely honest, the obvious answer would probably be photography.
I love photography.
It’s gone from being something I did with my phone, wandering around taking pictures of anything that caught my eye, to something I genuinely want to get better at.
Nature.
Birds.
Beaches.
People.
Events.
The occasional photograph that makes me stop and think, bloody hell, I actually took that.
I’ve even started doing photography work at events, and there’s something rather lovely about being able to turn something you enjoy into something people are willing to pay you for.
So yes.
If I was being sensible…
A photography business.
Easy.
Except…
I think I’d love to own a comic book shop.
Yep.
A comic book shop.
Because apparently being a bloke in his fifties who already has far too many hobbies, books and bits of geekery apparently isn’t enough.
I need premises.
And stock.
And shelves.
Lots and lots of shelves.
I’ve loved comics and graphic novels for years.
I’ve rambled before about how Watchmen was my first graphic novel and how that started a lifelong love affair with comic books.
And the more I think about it, the more I realise that owning a comic shop wouldn’t really be about selling comics.
Not entirely.
It would be about creating somewhere people actually want to go.
A proper little geeky Aladdin’s cave.
Comics.
Graphic novels.
Maybe some collectables.
Games.
A few bits of nostalgia.
Somewhere you could walk in looking for the latest issue of something and end up having a forty-minute conversation about Batman.
Or Transformers.
Or why the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were considerably better than they had any right to be.
Somewhere you could discover comics for the first time.
Somewhere adults could rediscover the things they loved when they were younger.
And somewhere people could simply geek out without having to explain themselves.
I think I’d like that.
There’s something quite appealing about having a little shop that feels like your place.
Not some huge corporate business.
Just a little independent shop, run by a bloke who probably knows far too much about fictional characters and not nearly enough about accounting.
So maybe photography is the sensible answer.
It’s something I’m passionate about.
Something I’m already doing.
Something I’m increasingly taking seriously.
But the comic shop?
That’s the one that makes me smile when I think about it.
And perhaps that tells me something.
Because sometimes the business you could build isn’t necessarily the business you’d love to build.
And if I ever do open one…
You’ll probably find me behind the counter with a camera around my neck, a comic in my hand, and absolutely no idea what I’m doing.
Which, if we’re being honest, is pretty much how I approach most things.
Stay safe,
BC
What are some life hacks that you practice?
I’m not sure I’d call these life hacks.
That makes them sound as though I’ve discovered some secret formula for life.
I haven’t.
If I had, I’d probably be considerably more organised.
And significantly less likely to walk into a room and immediately forget why the hell I went there.
But over the years, I’ve picked up a few little things that seem to make life slightly easier.
Nothing revolutionary.
No twelve-step morning routine involving seventeen different types of herbal tea.
Just a few things that seem to work for me.
Don’t Carry Everything (The Art of Letting Go)
This is probably the biggest one.
For a long time, I spent an incredible amount of energy carrying things that had already happened, you know.
Arguments.
Regrets.
Things people had said.
Things I wished I’d said.
Things I couldn’t change, no matter how many times I replayed them in my head.
Meditation has helped me with that.
Not by magically emptying my mind.
Anyone who knows me will understand how unlikely that sounds.
Instead, it’s taught me to notice my thoughts without automatically climbing aboard every single one of them.
Sometimes you just have to acknowledge something.
Learn whatever lesson there is to learn.
And then put the bloody thing down.
You don’t have to carry everything just because you once picked it up.
Some things belong in the past.
Leave them there.
Go outside
Another incredibly complicated life hack.
Leave the house.
Go for a walk.
Look at the sky.
Watch the birds.
Stand by the sea.
Get rained on.
Apparently, I’m particularly good at that last one.
There’s something about getting away from four walls and screens that resets the brain.
Sometimes the solution to a problem isn’t another hour staring at it.
Sometimes it’s a walk and a coffee.
Sometimes it’s feeding the crows.
Sometimes it’s standing in the sea with wet shorts and wondering why you thought that was a good idea in the first place.
And sometimes…
that’s enough.
We spend so much time trying to do things that we forget there’s value in simply being somewhere.
Outside.
Breathing.
Looking.
Listening.
Being present.
Write shit down
My brain has always been a noisy place.
So I write.
Sometimes it’s poetry.
Sometimes it’s complete nonsense.
Sometimes it’s a sentence that eventually becomes something.
And sometimes it’s simply a case of getting the thoughts out of my head and onto a piece of paper before they start having a bloody committee meeting in there.
There’s something strangely powerful about seeing a thought written down.
It becomes something outside of you.
You can look at it.
Question it.
Rearrange it.
Understand it.
Or decide that actually, it was rubbish…
…and throw it away.
Writing started for me as a way of processing thoughts and emotions.
Twenty years later, I’m still doing it.
Apparently, I’ve committed to the bit.
And I’m quite glad I did.
Protect you time
We live in a world that seems determined to fill every available second.
Notifications.
Messages.
News.
Social media.
Emails.
Opinions.
More opinions about the opinions.
Sometimes you need to switch the bloody lot off.
Read a book.
Play a game.
Sit in the shed.
Take photographs.
Write.
Watch the birds.
Drink a coffee.
Do absolutely nothing.
And yes, I know that doing nothing sounds like the sort of thing we’re all supposed to feel guilty about.
But doing nothing isn’t necessarily wasting time.
Sometimes doing nothing is exactly what your brain needs.
We don’t have to be productive every minute of every day.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop.
Fucking ask for help
This one took me far too long to learn.
I’ve still got the scars
I used to think asking for help meant
Not being able to “Man Up”
admitting weakness.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes it means recognising that you’re human.
We aren’t designed to carry everything alone.
If something is too heavy, put it down.
If you don’t know what to do, ask someone who does.
If you’re struggling, tell someone.
That isn’t failure.
It’s being sensible.
There’s a strange idea that we’re somehow supposed to have all the answers.
We’re not.
None of us do.
Sometimes strength isn’t about carrying something until your back breaks.
Sometimes strength is saying:
“I can’t carry this on my own.”
And letting somebody give you a hand.
Finally…
Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you enjoy your life.
Because trust it probably won’t be.
There will always be another bill.
Another job.
Another problem.
Another thing that needs fixing.
Another bloody email.
There will always be something.
So enjoy the cup of coffee.
Read the book.
Take those photographs.
Watch the birds.
Have the conversation.
Laugh at something stupid.
Tell somebody you love them.
Go outside.
Stand in the sea.
Get your feet wet.
And if you end up with wet shorts afterwards…
Well.
Apparently that’s just part of the experience.
Sometimes life doesn’t need fixing.
Sometimes you just need to be there for it.
And sometimes…
that’s enough.
Stay safe,
BC
How do you write what people actually want to read?
It’s an interesting question.
And, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not entirely sure I do.
I don’t mean that to sound arrogant.
Quite the opposite.
I’m probably one of the least commercially minded writers you’re ever likely to meet.
I don’t sit down at my keyboard thinking:
Right, Bob. What will the internet like today?
What’s going to get the most clicks?
What’s going to go viral?
What will the algorithm be particularly fond of?
If I did, I’d probably have given up years ago.
The truth is, I started writing for a completely different reason.
I needed somewhere to put the stuff rattling around inside my head.
Twenty-odd years ago, my “poetry” was barely poetry at all.
I called them scribbles.
Still do, actually.
They were thoughts, emotions, anger, fear, confusion and occasionally a bit of hope, thrown onto paper because keeping everything inside clearly wasn’t working terribly well.
Writing became a form of therapy.
The scribbles eventually became poems.
The poems eventually became books.
And somehow, along the way, people started reading them.
Which still amazes me.
Because I never really set out to become a poet.
I certainly didn’t start writing because I thought:
One day, thousands of people might read this.
I was just trying to make sense of myself.
And perhaps that’s the answer to the question.
Maybe you don’t write what people want to read.
Maybe you write what you need to say.
And then you hope that somewhere out there, somebody needs to hear it.
That’s certainly how I approach this blog.
Some days I’ll write about mental health.
Some days it might be something completely ridiculous.
Photography.
A walk.
A memory.
A book.
A film.
Something that made me laugh.
Something that pissed me off.
Something that made me stop and think.
And occasionally, for reasons known only to the universe, I’ll write about bloody crows.
There isn’t necessarily a grand content strategy behind it.
It’s just me.
Rambling.
Hence the name.
And yes, I’m aware that there are probably people who read something I’ve written and think:
What the hell was that bloke going on about?
Fair question.
I’ve asked myself the same thing.
But here’s the thing.
I don’t normally write poetry, scribbles, or these ramblings because I want to be liked.
I don’t write them because I want everyone to agree with me.
And I certainly don’t write them because I expect everyone to enjoy them.
I write because it helps.
It helps me process things.
It helps me understand what I’m thinking.
Sometimes it helps me put a name to an emotion I couldn’t quite identify before.
And sometimes, putting something down on paper means I can stop carrying it around in my head.
That’s why the mental health side of my writing has always mattered so much to me.
There have been times when writing wasn’t just a creative outlet.
It was part of keeping my head above water.
Poetry gave me a way of taking all that internal noise and turning it into something I could actually look at.
Something I could shape.
Something I could eventually put down.
And then something rather lovely happened.
Other people started saying:
“I understand that.”
Or:
“I’ve felt like that.”
Or:
“Thank you for writing this.”
And that’s when you realise that something you wrote purely to help yourself can sometimes become useful to somebody else.
That, to me, is the magic bit.
Not the numbers.
Not the views.
Not the likes.
Not whether something gets shared fifty times on Facebook.
Although, obviously, if you do want to share it fifty times, I won’t complain.
I’m not completely bloody stupid.
But that isn’t why I write.
If somebody reads something I’ve written and gets something from it, brilliant.
If somebody laughs, even better.
If somebody sees themselves in one of my poems and realises they aren’t quite as alone as they thought they were, then bloody hell…
That’s worth more than any number on a screen.
So, how do you write what people actually want to read?
I honestly don’t know.
I suspect there are people far cleverer than me who can explain algorithms, audience engagement, SEO, demographics and all the other mysterious machinery that apparently makes the internet go round.
Me?
I just write.
I write what interests me.
I write what bothers me.
I write what makes me laugh.
I write what hurts.
I write what I’m trying to understand.
And sometimes I write complete and utter nonsense because my brain has apparently decided that’s what we’re doing today.
And if people want to read it?
Well…
That’s a happy little accident.
(Bob Ross would approve.)
The funny thing is, though, perhaps the best writing isn’t created by trying desperately to please an audience.
Perhaps it comes from being honest enough to say the thing you actually wanted to say.
Because somewhere, there might be someone who needed those exact words.
I never expected my scribbles to become twenty years of poetry, six books, guest publications and all the other amazing things that have happened along the way.
I certainly didn’t have a five-year plan.
I had a pen.
A head full of noise.
And a desperate need to get some of it out.
Everything else has been a happy little accident.
And I think I’m quite happy keeping it that way.
So I’ll carry on rambling.
I’ll carry on scribbling.
I’ll carry on taking photographs.
I’ll carry on writing about mental health, life, love, the ridiculousness of being human, and whatever else wanders into my head.
If you enjoy it, thank you.
If something I write helps you, even better.
And if you don’t like it…
Well, there are plenty of other blogs on the internet.
No hard feelings.
I’ll still be here tomorrow.
Probably writing something nobody asked for.
And quite possibly enjoying myself immensely while I do it.
Stay safe,
BC
