6 YEAR BLOGOVERSARY & GIVEAWAY

It's Women Rule Writer's 6 year blogoversary today, which is hard to believe. So much has happened to me in those six years: divorce, remarriage, new baby, new books, new friends, lots and lots of writing related trips and festivals and conferences. One of the many things I love about being a writer - and about being an active blogger - is that even at this age and stage of life it is possible to make new and proper friends through what I do. There can be very few jobs that provide that opportunity.

I love blogging, I must say. Even if most of the time it feels as though I am talking into the wind. I know there are lurkers out there who never comment, and I know there are those who comment only the odd time. Anyway, I want to thank those of you who do read this blog for taking the time.

I have made tentative moves re. setting up the Irish Literary Bloggers Association and I will be doing more on that towards the end of the year. Things are too hectic for me to do much with it at the moment as I have 3 USA trips in the next 3 months as well as a new fiction chapbook and spring's novel to prepare for. But if you are interested in joining or getting involved email me at nuala AT nualanichonchuir DOT com.

Anyway, to celebrate 6 years a-blogging, I am having a little giveaway. Just leave a comment to be in the draw and I will give one of my books to one lovely blog reader. Simple as that.

FOUR YEAR BLOGOVERSARY

I'm having a funny few weeks. Edna O'Brien wrote a novel called August is a Wicked Month. I could write one called August is a Boring Month. I am at a loss having finished writing my new novel; I feel all crabby and impatient with the world. I have no gigs this month, therefore very little travel, and that makes me narky too. I love getting away - I don't live in the most culturally stimulating place. Which is grand when you are immersed in a project but, when you surface, there is a bit of a lack.

The month is book-ended by nice literary things - my novel You being dramatised on RTÉ Radio One for the first week of August was surreal and lovely. And I am going to a day-long workshop run by two wonderful writers on the last day of the month, but I am not doing much myself as such.

Of course I am still working; I have a short story collection to complete and it is nearly there and the themes in the stories interest me: mothers and sons, the loneliness of men and women, and the consequences of love. And I continue writing my articles for the Indo's Saturday mag too and they are fairly time consuming.

But I miss the urgency of the novel. Yes, 'urgency', a word I would normally only use about the short story. Writing the novel made me happy and sane because it obsessed and possessed me. When I wasn't writing it, I was thinking about it. It kept me busy and committed to the page, and those are two things I shrivel without.

But there are things to celebrate and give hope: I am back reading (and loving) short fiction after a bit of a hiatus; my house is cleaner than it has been in a year (!); and this week - Thursday - sees my four year blogoversary. Four years of rambling away to myself but finding, to my constant surprise, that people tune in. Since Facebook and Twitter have taken over the virtual world, less and less people bother with blogs. Certainly less people comment. But there are still readers and I know this because I meet them out and about, and they can tell me what I've been writing about here. Half the time I feel like I am wittering away to myself.

Blogging has been good to me: it has made me friends, introduced me to new writers, and gotten me gigs. Will I still be blogging in four year's time? Who knows? In the meantime thanks to all of you who read and comment; it helps when I'm having a wicked month to know you are out there, listening in.