It feels like ages since I last visited this blog. I haven't had anything published since late 2011 when I ventured into the contentious issue of gay marriage. After that, a heap of family, work, personal and health issues took over.
This blog represents a difficult time of recovery. There is stuff here I'm somewhat embarrassed to read. There is also stuff that was noticed by editors and producers and lots of readers, stuff which I am proud of.
If it wasn't for this blog, I'd never have ventured into my humble attempts at opinion journalism. I'd never have had sufficient writing practice to write an 85,000 word manuscript.
But believe it or not, writing is tiresome. Write now, I'm trying to gather energy to write some more. But I'm finding it hard. Writers' block isn't the problem. It's more like writer's fatigue.
So what should I do? Someone suggested I should return to blogging. So I'll give it a go and see what happens.
I always considered myself a rarity, someone who used conservative and/or liberal ideas to reach conclusions commonly associated with the allegedly monolithic Left. I think many opinion page editors couldn't understand me. Or perhaps the more conservative of them regarded me as a rat in the ranks.
Plus many editors couldn't understand why I was so offended when they would publish anything I wrote about Islam and/or Pakistan and/or the Middle East but nothing I wrote about subjects that really interested me e.g. Australian politics, the law or workplace relations. They must have thought my allegedly unpronounceable name made me an expert on all things exotic but a novice on anything more familiar.
There were exceptions. The Canberra Times and The Age were awesome. Crikey and New Matilda (and in my earlier days, Webdiary) were superb. There were others also. And doing book reviews for The Oz was always a joy.
So now the task ahead is to try and return to what was being done before. Or to go back to the future. Whatever. Though not with the same frequency as the time when I was averaging 3 articles a week. A return to blogging is a start. So watch this space.
Words 2012 © Irfan Yusuf
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