Hundreds and thousands

Not the colourful sugary little beads that used to (maybe still do?) decorate cakes, ice cream and the like, but the pageviews that have been raining on this largely moribund blog of late. More than forty thousand in the last month! Madness! I'm sure all of them, or at least, the vast majority, have been generated by 'bots', but why me, and why now? I spent a lot of time in the 'blogosphere' between 2010 and 2017, writing and publishing dozens of posts a month, at my peak, and was largely ignored, apart from a few hardy individuals (who I appreciated in spades, and still do, even though they've moved on now), but now, I seem to be 'flavour of the month'. It's all rather peculiar. It made me think of one of the episodes of the radio version of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy', where a couple of the characters find themselves in a disco populated by 'AI dancers'. 'But there are no real people here!', someone says. Quite!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A red-letter day

 One of the worst aspects of having a stroke, for me, is aphasia. Since that fateful day in October 2017, I've struggled with communication issues, most notably my speech and, in particular, writing. My original hope was to retire after forty years with my company, which would've fallen in 2019, and I had a daydream of writing a novel thereafter, but the health fates weren't with me. I was, at least, able to read fluently, so I've spent a lot of time reading other people's words, but coming up with new material of my own has been largely a case of (literal) headaches and almost infinite frustration. But, around six weeks ago, something clicked. I had a new story in my head, and found that I could progress, to the extent of writing almost every day since then, leading to today, when I published Cousinage in my fiction blog (the link is in the side bar, it anyone cares to have a look). It's not a novel, but is 44000 words long, near enough, and the thought that I could achieve that much in the time available is a minor miracle, as far as I'm concerned. Quantity is one thing, but I'm not making any claim regarding quality, although I'm pleased enough with it to go ahead with publication. Its existence is the key for me, rather than any expectation of approbation. It might be a one-off, but there is some hope that I'll able to add to my oeuvre, however amateurish, in the future.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B