I very nearly forgot to post a story tonight. Strictly speaking I missed a day, but as it was only just after midnight and I haven’t been to bed I don’t think that counts!

I’ve also written something different. Recently I was asked to write a review of an academic book called The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman. It was a great experience and I’d like to thank Gavin Budge, one of my lecturers, for giving me the opportunity. I’m hoping to do a bit more of this in the future, but for now, here is the link to the review at the British Society for Literature and Science:

Review: The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman

The sky is still burning, it has been since the end of the war. Some got out of course, on those last few transports to the cislunar stations, but most were stuck beneath the flames. No one quite knows how the fires still burn, the ozone should’ve been consumed within days and without that, the fuel should been gone. No one quite knows how the fire was lit in the first place though, so maybe the fact it still rages isn’t the concern. It had long been rumored the Tri-Continental forces had been working on a new weapon, but the rumors never expressed the scale of the destruction. People weren’t killed directly, but the blanket of flames in the upper atmosphere both warmed the planet and prevented the sun’s rays from reaching the ground. Everything died. The Earth died.

I’m now 24 days into 150/150. So far I’ve managed to publish a new story every day, (technically some have gone up after midnight but as I hadn’t been to sleep I think that counts). A couple of weeks ago I did a week of poetry and this week I’m writing using a photo I’ve taken as inspiration. I’m finding it much easier when I have a theme of some descrptition as it gets me at least half way to an idea and so expect more of these kind of weeks. I hope you’ve been enjoying them so far, there’s still 126 to come!

Until recently it had been many months since I had posted here. There are four real reasons for this:

1. I was concentrating on the end of my degree and then the challenge of the masters. The masters in particular was far more time consuming than perhaps I had appreciated, particularly alongside increasing my hours at my job by 50%.
2. I’ve been working on Achieving December. I’m still not there yet, but I began to feel that writing for the blog was taking away from my already limited time of writing my novel.
3. I’ve started/ am starting a new blog. I have a huge passion for technology and I have become increasingly interested in a field of scholarly thought called ‘posthumanism’. I will write more about this at another time, but essentially it deals, (amongst other things), with the amalgamation of the human and the machine. With my new project, Artificially Intelligent, I am aiming to write about anything that draws together AI and culture, from simple news stories charting its development to film and book reviews. I’ve put up a few sample posts, to get my eye in as it were, but I’m currently working on a whole bunch of content to start with properly at the beginning of next month.
4. I took my eye off the ball. One week became two, which became a month, which became six. I lost the habit of writing here and being so busy made that feel okay, (which I honestly think it is, I just miss doing this).

So what am I writing this post for? Why now? Well why not would be one answer, but a more honest one would be that, as the masters begins to draw to a close, I am starting to think about what I want to do next. As much as I would love that answers to be a full-time author, it isn’t realistic. So, I am starting to write again, both here and at AI, because whatever I do next, it almost certainly won’t involve the quantity or kind of writing I’ve done here, or at uni, and I know I’m going to miss that greatly. So I want to start to build habits again, to write frequently, so that when I’m commuting home on the train, instead of pulling out my phone and playing Ticket to Ride, I’ll pull up wordpress, write a little thing and feel good about it.

In conclusion then, welcome back. Welcome back the three of you who read this site and, most importantly to me, welcome back me. I like your writing, you should do more of it.