Things in life are constantly changing. I can’t remember the last time I had a ‘status quo’ which lasted for more than two years and even I feel that I change a lot from time to time. As such, I’m always quite pleased when I encounter any one of the three constants that I’d like to talk about in today’s blog post; they’re only small things, but the fact that they always happen is both comforting and heartwarming to me.
Back in 2010 I was in an English Language A Level class; I loved those classes, they were my favourite. The teacher once mentioned that there was a lot of (optional) work that we could do, and I said I happily would do it all and was even looking forward to doing so.
“It sounds like you’re very easily, amused,” she replied and it’s the first time I remember anyone saying that to me, but certainly not the last. When I visited my friend Mairi in London the following year, she also remarked that I was very easily amused and I quite liked that, since my teacher had said the same thing. I remember one of my first year university lecturers said the same thing about me and my friend Tülin often said it to me when I slept over when I was happy just sitting around doing nothing. When my friend David and I bought a pot of paperclips and spent an hour or so counting them to see if the pot had the correct number on it, I even found myself saying it, which is funny because I didn’t really think of myself as easily amused until everyone started saying it! Just a few months ago, when I explained to my boss at RomanCart how much fun I was having while I got on with something, he said “well, it sounds like you’re very easily amused.”
Back in 2008, while enjoying a holiday in Cornwall with a couple of my friends, I met one of their siblings for the first time, and because of my ‘accent’ they thought I was American. That was the first time I remember anyone making that mistake, and I’ve even made a whole blog post about it before, so I’ll just link to that rather than retreding old ground! Just a few weeks ago, this came up again at my new office at Futureproof Digital Media.
But I saved my favourite for last; over the years a lot of people have said to me “You’re a very positive person” or “I like your positive attitude” and it makes me feel very happy every time. What’s especially good is that people often say it to me out of the blue – when they do, I wonder why they said it, because I don’t realise I’ve said anything especially positive. A few people have even said it’s one of the nicest things about me – it’s very affirming to be praised so regularly about an aspect of your personality. Every time somebody says it, it reminds me of all the other times people have said it to me and makes me feel good about myself. This, and the two other things I mentioned, seem to be the three constants in my life which will always happen no matter how many people go away and how much circumstances change. This is nice.

I did have another blog post planned for today, but I decided that I’d actually quite like to write about the fact that today I postedmy 300th Finger Puppet Show strip. I remember, when I made the first strip, it was just a gift for a friend and I never intended to make a webcomic. I later decided that I wanted to make another one, and thought about doing it regularly… After doing about three or four, I didn’t think I would be able to think up enough ideas to one a week, but now I do two a week and have been doing so for ages, so that all went very nicely. As you’ll see if you read that strip, there is a strong emotional attachment to the webcomic for me as it acts as a kind of unbroken chain to the time when I started making it in 2012; I made it during what I would currently describe as the best time of my life and though every aspect of my life has changed since then, my webcomic remains the same. It’s comforting, in a way. I remember I made the first strip in bed on a summer’s afternoon after a lie in; it was a few weeks away from returning to university and seeing my friends again. I made the 300th strip on a cold winter’s evening, getting it done as quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t get to bed too late on a night when I had work the next day; the time I’d next see most of my friends was (and is) uncertain. How times have changed! I like to think that in 2020, when I’ve managed to pass at least my 600th strip, things will be completely different again.

In today’s blog post I’d like to talk a little about a way you can promote your writing, if you post at all online. I post regularly on two forums (DK Vine and The Waltons Forum) and have become fairly well known on each of them. As each of these forums cover subjects that I am very interested in, that means the subjects they cover are the kinds of things I may write about on my blog. Whenever I write something which may be of interest to the people on either of those forums, I go ahead and share it. I used to feel bad about ‘spamming’ people with my work, but the truth is that they may be legitimately interested, I do need to promote my work and I wouldn’t hesitate if somebody else had written it. So I think that a good way to build traffic to your site is by getting yourself well known on a forum and sharing your work amongst people you know will like it. I am actually a member of some other forums too, but I don’t post as prolifically on them, so I’d feel like I was abusing my freedom of posting if most of my very few posts were links to my own work. But, anyway, I think it’s a good idea to make yourself known on as many areas around the internet as possible and to link back to your work whenever you can – it’s a small and easy way to increase your readers. I hope that will be useful for you.

(Don’t miss the latest Avoid Drowning podcast – featuring me!)

At some point near Christmas day, the fan in my laptop stopped working. Without a fan, my laptop got very hot in only a short space of time (I couldn’t use it for more than an hour at a time) meaning I couldn’t do very much with it. The laptop also had a broken disc drive and so it seemed like a good idea to replace it at this point; so I did. I’m writing this latest blog post on my new laptop and wondering what other exciting pieces of writing I’ll do on this in the future.
I have to say though, that even though I’m very excited to have a new, clean, fast laptop that works better and does more than the old one, I am still sad about replacing it. I got my previous laptop back in 2010 and have a lot of memories with it; I can remember using it in my Sixth Form study room, watching DVDs with a friend, making notes from interesting lectures at Bath Spa University, sleeping over with friends and updating my blog before bed, writing out whole essays in the Bath Spa University library, having lovely video calls with friends who were far away, browsing the internet so that I have something at least slightly bearable to do while doing a work placement at the Job Centre, and so much more.
People say that it’s wrong to put value on material possessions, and maybe I’m doing that; but then again, I value this material possession for immaterial things. When I open it up today, the memories of all its past uses come flooding back and though, when I use it less, I will still have those memories, it will feel different knowing that I lack a physical connection. For me, having a solid item which connects me to a past event is very important. So I will miss my old laptop (well, I do still have it) but I am also pleased about the features of my new laptop.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)