postone

return of the mac

I had a title for this, the first bit of writing that I’ve done for a fair old while, and then this absolute nugget came to me whilst I was driving to my luxurious writing shed (Starbucks). Apologies if this first post is jumpy and flows as much as an uphill stream, it’s been a while.

My ‘return to writing’ has been spurred on by ploughing far too much money into a laptop that could have been purchased for a third of the price, but true to form I’ve gone for something stupid, expensive and absolutely fucking beautiful. I’d be more worried if I went for the sensible option. We’ll go with the ‘you only live once, it’s only money, can’t take it with you’ nonsense, if it makes you feel any better.

I state ‘return to writing’ as if it has been many, many years since I famously vanished from the writing circles of… somewhere writer-y. It’s far less dramatic than that, it’s a simple case of me having done some writing for a few months ‘professionally’, and then I didn’t. I haven’t wanted to type more than a few sentences up until a couple of months ago, when through no known reason I wanted to get back into it. Purely for myself. If nobody reads this, then congratulations. Job done. It’s a selfish endeavour, and I’m all for it.

The luxurious writing shed.

I did quite enjoy aspects of being a ‘professional’ writer. I had one year of being able to list the profession on my car insurance as ‘writer’, which only complete arseholes would do when they’re not really a proper writer. I was happy to join them. (Tom, if you ever read this, you’re not an arsehole, you’re a proper writer). Another perk was putting ‘writer’ on my Tinder profile. Proper arsehole territory. It didn’t last long, and I can assure you that my yard was utterly empty, there were no echos bouncing off the vats of milkshake I had prepared earlier.

As I’m writing this, I’m enjoying doing it again. My friend has just text me to ask what I’m writing about today. Being able to reply ‘Whatever the fuck I want’ is absolute bliss. It’s taken a mere 17 hours after accepting the delivery of Apple-y goodness to become the horrible stereotype in Starbucks. To get back into the old, previously normal routine that is now a bit of a stranger. A stranger for good, but one to perhaps reconcile with on my terms. I’m not ‘good’ at a whole heap of things, but writing is something I can blag and enjoy. That, and eating. I’m absolutely superb at eating.

Proof I have friends.

You may be wondering why this blog, website, whatever it is, is called ‘quite snazzy’. As I was setting it up as a proper website (proper is stretching it, but we’ll go with it), I wanted it to have a proper name that wasn’t something like ‘HELLO MY NAME IS MICHAEL HERE IS MY WRITING’. HMNIMHIMW for short. I wanted a name that was quite snazzy. Then I got distracted by something and couldn’t be arsed to think about it anymore, so here we are. Snazzy is a severely underrated word, and one that I have used since day dot. That probably explains an awful lot.

There’s no schedule to this blog. I’m going to use it as a bit of a notebook. I might post a few times a week, twice in a day, leave it a couple of weeks. Whenever the mood takes. It might be this style of rambling on about shite, or it might be a little more considered. Regardless, it’ll be good to do. I’d remark that it would be good for the soul, but that would require me having a soul. I’m half-tempted to try out some fiction stuff, but that’s going to take some preparation and knowing of where the bloody hell to start with that. Might be wise to leave that to the actual professionals.

For a first stab at this blogging thing, I might just leave it there. If you’ve bothered to get this far, well done. I can’t offer you much more other than the promise that I’ll be there again and spewing out more bollocks for the masses. I’ve enjoyed this, here’s to picking old things back up. On my terms. Selfish bastard.

I write to music, taking in a whole album in all its glory. This post has been brought to you by:
Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate (absolutely delicious)