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  • Writer's pictureStuart Harvey

Welcome to my new blog

Updated: May 4, 2021




Welcome to the first posting on the all new Stuart Harvey Blog, which will hopefully entertain and inform you, my avid book reader.


 
Welcome to my first ever blog. I say my first ever but I suppose that depends on your definition of a blog.

I’ve always thought of a blog as a place where a person, either well-known or otherwise, expresses their opinion about something, or discusses a certain topic.


If that is a good assumption then perhaps my early writings for an ex-pat magazine in Spain, were actually blogs. There I wrote a regular sports page and wrote about the local sports scene, what had happened and what was due to happen, all the normal stuff. Maybe they were blogs of a sort, who am I to say?


Certainly, in the early 2000’s when I was first involving myself in the published written word, the world of social media was in its infancy, so books, magazines and newspapers still had precedence over platforms like Facebook and Instagram.


How I yearn for those days now!


Mind you, on the other hand, before writing this I have to confess that I relented and reached out for the internet and Googled a definition of blog and found this option;


“a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.”


If you go with that then this is clearly my first ever blog attempt, as it is an on-line article, as opposed to a hardcopy publication.


But does it all really matter whether this is my first blog or not? I hardly think so.

Whatever you decide, this is a blog, and I am writing it, so make your own mind up.


Well, what am I doing this for?


I suppose for several reasons, mostly selfish and egotistical. Firstly, I hope that it will fill in the gap between my (very) amateur attempts at writing novels. I love to write, it really is my only hobby at the moment, especially as it is something I can do during a lockdown. After all I am always socially distanced and I am not mixing with anyone outside my own household. Good old me!


But shouldn’t blogs have a purpose other than fulfilling the needs of the writer? Shouldn’t they be thought provoking and be the catalyst for meaningful debate?


Of course not! This is my blog, so it’s rightfully my platform to give me the opportunity to sound off about what I care about.


But then wait a minute. If that’s the case, that this blog is just a place for me to rant on, then what’s the point? Better that it is a place for me to voice my views and then encourage a response. Of course, it needs to be one that I agree with.


Right, that’s got the introduction out of the way, and for those that are still with me, and I hope some of you have decided to stay the course, now I will get to the point.


My understanding is that my blog should be about something I am passionate about and believe in. That being the case, this blog will be about the written word, mine and everybody else’s too.


The blog will be about my belief that life is enriched by the written word and the opportunity to read the scribblings of others in books, magazines, newspapers (well maybe not all of them) and a host of other mediums.


It will be entitled “For the Love of Books” and in this blog I will hopefully be putting fourth many examples of the very best, and sometimes worst, of the written word.


I will discuss those authors who I admire and read. Those who have inspired me and why. Those who I agree with and those who I don’t. In fact, almost any writer will be up for discussion.


How does that sound?


And so dear avid reader, this is the start of a journey. Stay with me, read my ramblings and please respond through the channels I will hopefully set up, providing I can get my sad, old head around the technical aspects of this thing they call a blog.

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