Tragicocomedia

I put this blog on ice for while, realising that it had become the sole focus for all my writing. This was something I had always wanted to avoid – writing regular content rather than sustaining longer projects. This has been going on for some time, especially considering I haven’t written a novel since 2008, largely on account of losing interest in novels, with my attention shifting to short stories, journalism, film and computer games. Either way, the blog was always intended to be just an appendage; a home for writing I considered not worth submitting elsewhere, or that was too self-indulgent to be of interest to publishers.

I stopped sending material to journals a few years ago, having grown tired of the paper submission process with its ludicrous turn-around times. Since then, particularly after the birth of my son, Tragicocomedia has become the sole destination for writing and photography. This situation felt unsatisfactory and, in a way, self-defeating, especially since I have shown little interest in communicating with other bloggers or participating in the community. What, then was the point?

So, I stopped; hoping I would get itchy fingers and send out some more submissions. Only, after a brief flurry of writing poetry, I soon stopped writing altogether. It was a strange feeling not to be writing, an uncomfortable sensation of having been freed from moorings and set adrift. “Riding the Bakerloo line” is what I call it – a dizzying drift off the rails.

And in this manner six or seven months went by with too little to show for it. Now, however, my fingers are itchy again and I’m writing poetry. Not to publish here, but to get on out there in the old-fashioned way. In truth, it’s the only kind of publication that I really value. I was born before the internet and need to see it in print.

These photos mostly come from the year and a half that has passed since I published new shots, plus a few oldies that I found to my liking. Much of this time has been spent hanging around play-parks in my role as the “wicket-keeper” – standing at the ready, poised to catch my son should he fall. Unlike his dad, he never falls.

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