A history of writing

While I was contemplating moving my blogging activity from Wordpress to Blogger, old thoughts began to spiral back from the mid '80's. These years were not always the most fun for a shy, withdrawn teenage such as I. But it was in these solo moments, that some firm foundations were laid towards the emphasis writing has over my life today.

Looking back over my writing history, I have fond memories of a time when all I owned was a manual typewriter, producing home-made fanzines after school. The very first of these was my The Marvel Update back in December 1985 - I attempted a round-up of the current X-Men, Dare Devil, Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spiderman and Web of Spiderman comic book titles. I still remember picking up my comic books, at a local store, every friday and I had a cunning plan to produce my monthly marvel update fanzine for the store to sell. Being 15 years old at the time, this seemed a fool-proof plan and I planned world domination! Of course, the 15 years olds of today may not be such wild dreamers as I.

My other great love of the late '80s, early '90s was the new wave of hardcore punk music(see Ian Glasper's book, Trapped in a Scene) and again fanzines were my writing outlet. So SLAM was born, lasting all of two issues. Interviewing bands, writing gig reviews and very sloppy cut 'n' paste design, were the order of the day. By this time the writing bug had bitten hard and there was no escape - I was DOOM(ed).

Thinking back to the mid '90s, you can blame my first home PC and MMO gaming for the lack of anything similar to the DIY fanzines of the '80s. Of course I did write in note books, on scraps of paper but for reasons unknown, I was never a desktop publisher. I can only believe that the distracting power of PC gaming(and those naughty MMO time-sinks) got the better of me.

Blogging, and subsequently freelance writing, have only been a very recent activities for me. With gaming in the MMO, World of Warcraft prompting me to start my first blog, The Liber. This was probably back in 2005/6 and over those handful of years, my writing has become something which is part of my daily life and not something that I'd give up easily. But I do question how long blogging can survive in this fast-paced and ever-changing world? And where will my writing lead me over the next decade?