My website provider WordPress this morning reminded me today is this 4th anniversary of me setting up my website writesaidfred.org . A domain I created for the purpose of sharing the blogs I’d commenced writing at that juncture of my life. Outlets from the more challenging aspects of my life, including my wife’s incurable cancer journey.
On launch of the site my expectations were I’d have the creative capacity to pen one narrative a week. Literary output my OCD was telling me I’d have to publish every seven days at midday on a Saturday, unless there was a bar mitzvah in the family that week in which case I was given a twenty-four hour extension.
With none of my clan being Judaic the one day extension wouldn’t have been required. However, with a background in the field of IT Service Management, I felt it prudent to prepare for any eventuality when drafting my website’s Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Among other unlikely to be used caveats written into monologue delivery parameters was prohibition of inappropriate use of pictures within the blogs, such as food produce that resemble male/female genitalia. Or indeed pictures of male/female genitalia that looks like vegetables.
*** – Hopefully me using an eggplant emoji as an example above won’t be counted as an instance of breaching website SLA.
Anyhow, I learned soon after commencing this literary odyssey my mind was a great deal more creatively fertile than I’d realised. Consequently, my original target of one narrative a week evolved into the production of a daily publication for writesaidfred.org (aka https://strachan.blog).
I can’t put into words how cathartic penning these hundreds of thousands of words have been for my spirits. Each blog a daily 2-3 hours self-help counselling session; slowly but surely dragging me from a ditch of low self-esteem, despair and self-loathing. Bringing me to my current place, still dangling above that pit but nearer long term aspirations of the existential fulfilment I’ve sought for years but never chased in earnest.
These literary offerings drafted in many different locations, including my dining room, my parent’s living room, various oncology unit waiting rooms, numerous trains, a plethora of coffee houses, my dad’s hospice room, the Leeds to Harrogate bus, Headingley cricket ground, Mediterranean beaches and several toilets in around a dozen UK and European cities.
Talking of lavatories, my brother Ian, one of the more frequent visitors to my website, recently advised me he reads my narratives when sat on the toilet. Hopefully, it’s not a metaphor for what he thinks of my writing quality!
To close, I wanted to share with you some statistical data from the years I trodden this rocky path of erratically presented locutions. Thanks for taking the time to read my work during this time, it’s greatly appreciated.
Below a list of figures captured during writesaidfred.org’s four year lifespan:-
- Number of Website Hits – 55,994
- Number of Countries Visiting Site – 144
- Posts Published on Website – 1,446
- Number of Words Published on Website – 927,882
- Average Words Per Post – 641
- Bags of Gummy Bears Eaten While Writing – 1,006
- Cups of Coffee Consumed “ “ – 1317
- Times Interrupted by Wife While Writing – 3,205
- “ “ “ Mum. “ “ – 3,121,305
- “ “ “ Martians “ “ – 3
- “ Shouted “You’ll never take me alive copper” – 0
- “ Felt Need to Shout “Oh Bollocks!” – 784
- Distracted by Homes Under the Hammer valuations – 598
- Toilet Breaks – 1,024
- Number of Posts My Daughter Has Refused to Read – 1,446
