Setting the scene.

Happy New Year! And welcome back to Jeremy's Journal.

I haven’t loved my writing recently. Over the holidays I made some time to write. I thought I was being proactive, I wanted to write the first few Jeremy’s Journal posts weeks in advance. For whatever reason, I just didn’t like what I wrote. I tried to be a disciplined writer, sit at my desk (my parent’s dining table) and believe that the words would come. I tried being an inspired creative, jotting down notes on my phone whenever inspiration struck. Maybe if I had used an old leather bound journal and a pencil my ideas would have been more profound.

Whenever I read what I had written, it felt lacking somehow. Maybe that’s because I care, now. When I started this blog, it was just something fun to do. In truth, it was born out of boredom. At the time I was puppysitting for a friend which involved keeping a watchful eye, or ideally two, on a 3 month old Border Collie, 24/7. Running out of things to do, I turned to writing. I wrote a quick LinkedIn post about being stuck at home to show any possible employers that I was, in fact, capable of using a keyboard. I wrote another post the following day. And the next.

Now, though, it’s not really a tool to escape boredom. I want this blog to be important, I think. It sounds silly to say that. It feels like Jeremy’s Journal has the opportunity to be something big and fun and meaningful, but it’s also just a blog. How much can a blog mean? Especially in 2023. In any case, I care more, now, about what I write. I want to be witty or insightful or wise, perhaps occasionally disagreeable. I believe that’s why I couldn’t write something up to scratch in December; I kept rereading each piece, studying it for flaws. Maybe writing under a deadline is good because at some point, no matter how good or bad my blog for the day is, I must click publish.

So here’s to 2023. I hope it is a year that sees the growth of Jeremy’s Journal. I hope to write something good without the threat of a deadline. I hope that I write something that resonates with you. I hope to make you scoff or giggle. But perhaps most importantly of all, I hope to have fun writing, even though I no longer have to escape an endlessly energetic, teething puppy.