August 2024: Allow us to reintroduce ourselves…
April 2025:
It starts in the head and it begins
It starts and it changes everything
It starts and it never fades away
Can I lay my head down, will you say,
“Every little thing’s gonna be okay”?
– ‘It Starts’, Nerina Pallot, 2009.
Well hello there. Hope you’re all keeping out of mischief and staying fresh as daisies.
I’m very well aware of the fact that over six months ago, this here corner of the web was on the cusp of a massive relaunch. I was using words and phrases to the effect of “change has come over this here corner of the web”, “I’ve neglected writing with regularity about anything beyond my usual retro pop music larks”, as well as a dollop of “get back to using this site for writing with regularity just for the pure enjoyment of it, about things that I love” and of course, a hefty dose of “I will be in touch again very soon – this week in fact…”
And cue, save for four Pop Essays blogs, tumbleweed.
What else can I say except a bucketful of soz.
I’m going to start by saying two things.
Firstly, I am going to say the thing that apparently, no self respecting blog writer is ever meant to think, let alone say out loud. I’ve now been at this in some form or another for over 10 years. And I think that I might have been in rather a bit of a rut creatively of late.
Soft relaunching this here corner of the web over six months ago with the best of intentions, and then my posts reducing to a crawl thereafter has probably been the giveaway that I’ve been struggling to keep my plates spinning.
Alas, life has gone through one of those patches for me over the end of last year and into this new one, that has been demanding and exhausting and carried a lot of pressure with it, and that being compatible with regular activity the blog and social media algorithms (shudder) expect of us is not very much at all really. I was feeling a lot like this (rather hilarious) video the fabulous singer songwriter Kamille posted on her Insta towards the end of last year:
Secondly, I am going to say another thing that self respecting blog writers aren’t meant to think, let alone say out loud in response to this.
FUCK IT.
Far from engendering creativity, writing and the blogging landscape and social media has, for me anyway, of late, but I suspect a great deal many more others, been, to use slightly more delicate terms, a bit of a minefield.
Just before Christmas last year, after 14 years, I finally left TSFKAT (a Prince style acronym I created, which means The Site Formerly Known As Twitter. Hey, I’ve at least done something cool creatively for myself in six months).
You probably don’t need an explanation as to why I’m no longer on there. I had been thinking about it for a while before I actually did it. It was only once I had yeeted myself off there that yes, I felt more liberated, but I did also feel a wistfulness about this that I couldn’t quite put my finger on for a long time.
But doing so, and a period of reflection thereafter, as to why I felt this way, did contribute a lot to my overall feelings about where, after over a decade, I sat in the landscape of things.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so self-indulgent as to think the world revolves around my humble little corner of the web, far from it. But I guess I suffered from a crisis of confidence.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, came a message from someone I know – a lovely message, in fact – reaching out and saying that they were following me because, and I quote, my here corner of the web looked like such a wonderful, positive page.
It’s funny really. How such a simple but thoughtful set of words were a gentle reminder to me that actually, I was in my own bloody head an awful lot more than I should have been, and I should have worried a little less about trying to, as another dear mate of mine has often said, “carry the weight of the world on my shoulders”, and just focused on being what I’ve always intended this blog to be; a positive little space that gives people a bit of joy and escapism and pleasure as much as I get from writing it.
So I am going to refrain from the trumpety announcements I made back in August lest it comes back to bite me on the bum in October. But know this, however, that I am stepping back into this gingerly, with a desire to get the wheels slowly turning again. Call it the time of year, but The Pensmith is coming back to life.
Big old hugs to you all,
Alex
X x
The Niche Reference 