Looking to the future

Blocks, problems and new ways

Stuff gets in the way of getting things done but that’s getting done too.

I’ve been quiet. I haven’t posted here for months. I’m working on a book about how the 1930s changed holidays and lessons we can learn from those times. I hoped that the short form, using blogs and Substack, would help me write that book.

I had a structure for my writing. I had chapters planned. Research was done. But intentions fell apart, under the pressure of short term deadlines for posts.

Substack works like that. Blogs work like that. They become voracious, like an old fashioned news editor, the kind who demanded stories. They set demanding deadlines. They demand constant new features and articles.

Turn down the volume

That didn’t suit me. I don’t need that. I like writing longer work. Writing is my way of shaping prose. I cut, and paste, and hack. I write and polish. I move chunks of prose and find the structure I want. I go back and forth, and change.

As a way of writing, it’s inefficient but it is practical and creative. It’s organic. It used to drive other people mad. It doesn’t suit short deadlines. It doesn’t suit the demands of a blog or Substack for new short articles.

Ideas that looked final became less so. I rewrote more and more. I uncovered a new approach and found a new line here, a new source there. I turned every page I could. In all those changes, I dropped writing here. I turned down the volume. I became quiet.

War didn’t end

Stick with me. That will change. Over the next months I’ll post more, looking at holidays in wartime Britain (1939-1945) and other stuff about holidays.

I haven’t found many others writing about the subject of holidays in wartime. I thought that was because holidays ended when war began. But the diaries, journals and letters I’ve read showed something else happened.

Over the coming weeks I’ll have more for you to read.

Notes

Image from YHA Annual Report 1942.