I’ve noticed recently that whenever I’ve mentioned to anyone about this www.commfailure.com site or my techie, Bermuda-focused column pieces at Bermuda’s Bernews website at https://bernews.com/tag/chrisgarrodcolumns, I’ve followed that comment with something along the lines of “…and jeez, I need to write again because it’s been ages and they may be a bit out of date.”
So why is that?
Well, I was busy at work in the last half of 2020. This was me working from home during this current COVID infected pandemic. It would be nice to think, “couldn’t you have taken at least 30 minutes from your day to sit here?” Well, I tried a few times.
I have a draft piece on the state of worldwide affairs (I guess that’s an easy one) and one on my delight with Taylor Swift’s rise to songwriting genius (easier).
My wife and kids are not here. Since September 2020, they have been in the UK because of COVID, and I’ve only seen them a few times since. Other than that, I’m home alone. I have no excuse not to sit here and write, at least on weekends. I have the time. I’ve been in quarantine twice. Weekends are quiet. Sometimes the weather outside is atrocious.
WordPress will always state: “Start writing or type / to choose a block” every time I sit in front of my laptop, finishing a paragraph. Or I’ll sit, not finishing a paragraph, knowing I’ll sit, and see that phrase once I have. When do you stop and think, “I have nothing to say?”
So I thought this morning, “Well, let’s just write about how I have nothing to say” to see if that helps me figure out what I want to say because I’m sure I do have something to say, even if it is about my admiration of Taylor Swift, or views regarding singularity, or how I think the absence of the Oxford comma in modern literature is a tragedy. Perhaps a new piece on Fintech, such as the increasing use or misuse of stablecoin in the cryptocurrency landscape. Or perhaps, yes, the state of worldwide affairs through my own eyes (perhaps just a paragraph).
What I actually do
So as things stand, when I write, I do it within 280 words, which includes a link to something. Hashtags and tags to certain people I think might be interested in what I’ve written or posted.
So yes, I tweet. I wouldn’t say I’m as prolific as a few people I know on Twitter, but it is every day. I either spread my tweets throughout the day, or I’ll tweet in a flurry during the course of a few hours on any particular day.
Mostly random; things like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, humorous tweets with my other Twitter friends, politics, data privacy, diversity, and just digital transformation generally. Video games and music, perhaps.
It is a rubbish alternative to actually writing. It is still nice to release your own thoughts instead of writing a 500-1,000 blog post. Plus, it is social. I always have to remind those who use social media platforms such as Twitter that to enjoy them, you have to be social. I certainly think I am, responding in such a way to so many people, I almost feel like they live next door, or I’ve been friends with them for ages. I’ve actually made friends on Twitter I’ve never met. I do like it.
What I once did
CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images
I’m not sure what to call it, but when I was about fourteen or fifteen until around the age of twenty-two, I wrote just loads of poems or lyrics to potential songs in my head. I was happy to find them all just recently. I made photocopies of them before they faded into obscurity (as in literally). The batch I found were mostly described as lyrics, as they often had notations on the side: “verse,” “verse,” “chorus,” “verse,” “chorus,” “middle eight,” “chorus.”
I had two make-believe bands at different points in time: “The Vulture Eye” and “The Obscure” (the latter was certainly one used when I was infatuated with The Cure). I made up album names. “Dreams and Other Things.” “Fortune,” a 6 track EP with the songs “Let it be You,” Nothing,” “Clown,” “Bitter Excuse,” “51,” and “(only a) fragment.” The latter has its own catchphrase: “You don’t know, you don’t know, what was done to you to become only a fragment.”
Songs titles like “Perfect inside,” “The very last thing,” “Liquid paper rain,” “Old blue eyes.” Liquid paper rain pretty much says it all.
Looking back at them, most of them are cringe-worthy, reflecting teen angst in every possible way. Dark, just very dark. Stupid. Unreadable. Some are lighter, reflecting my loves and likes of whomever I was with or wanted to be with at that time (but equally cringe-worthy). Most pointing to the types of music I was listening to at the time (The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Pet Shop Boys, The Sex Pistols, The Smiths, New Order, did I mention The Cure?). Things that were happening to me. Break-ups, new relationships, school, underage drinking, etc. (I had a code that I used to put on every piece of paper I wrote while smashed out of my head). An example: “The carpet’s orange, it blends with my socks, I feel like a table under four feet of it.”. Yes, gibberish.
Once, I wrote that “Life, in the end, signifies nothing. Nothing but precious memories.” That was about as dark as a 17-year old looking for direction gets.
There are a few that are actually OK. They are usually the short ones. (“You talk, I talk. Just nothing but words leave our mouths.)”
At one point, I even did record reviews (just as a fun fantasy because I assume I knew at the time no-one on earth would publish them). Using an old typewriter, I wrote a few pages where, after giving both Depeche Mode’s “Violator” and The Beautiful South’s “Welcome to the Beautiful South” 9.5’s out of 10, I surely almost ruined Lloyd Cole’s career by giving his first solo album in 1990 a 6 out of 10, stating that:
“It doesn’t do anything bold or interesting (other than spin on the turntable).”
Looking back at everything I wrote during this period, I was hyper-prolific, writing every other day, every day, or twice a day. I’m so happy now that the Internet wasn’t available to me and social media didn’t exist back then.
What I should do now
Taylor Swift, you’re probably next. OK, well, hopefully, this has broken my block. I want to write at least once a month.
Even if whatever I write turns out to be cringeworthy, reflecting the angst of a forty-eight-year-old in every possible way.