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The Armchair Mountaineer

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Wilderness & Wellbeing BLOG

My name is Tom Smallwood and here you will find my posts and those of guests, on the positive effects of time spent outdoors.

Why am I writing this blog?

December 18, 2015

I decided to do this blog as a way of writing several times per week. A sort of excercise of the mind more than anything, with no real remit and no boundaries of subject.

All of this means I find myself late on a Thursday night feeling I should write but not knowing what to write.

I am forcing myself.

I could, at this juncture, point out that many of the greatest writers have shown extraordinary discipline and treated writing as a job and not simply, as the layman might imagine, a vague art fuelled by some mystical inspiration rather than hard work. Hemingway, I believe, woke up early to ”work” at his art, tapping out 500 words a day as a minimum.

However, if I were to say what I have just said, you might picture me couped up in my study imagining myself to be worthy of such company both intellectually and in terms of repute. Neither is the case. Indeed, I am in the TV room, watching the second test match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka and aimlessly trickling thoughts onto the laptop.

Just like Ernest Hemingway...

I might have, when I was a good deal younger, liked to cast my forty year old self in the same mould as the great writers of the 20th century, those like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kafka, Mann, Camus and Sartre who lit a fire inside me as I presumed rather naively I would do to later generations.

I wonder if my 20 year old self would be disappointed. I once won a prize for a short story, but I was already in my mid to late twenties when that happened and the boat had sailed. Nevertheless I enjoyed writing and that is what has caused me to take it up, again as a hobby, many years later. It pleases me, without any pretension. That is why I have quietly written these few lines in the company of Brendon McCullum et al.

And should there be any doubt as to whether I intend to challenge 'Papa' Hemingway, I might mention in closing that I have only managed 350 words. Goodnight.

Tags Writing and Blogging
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