Mark My Words

In a moment of sheer genius on their part, NorfolkPlaces have asked me to write a monthly column.

I asked how long should it be, and they responded “for as long as you fancy doing it,” so, yeah. This could go well.

Before accepting, I had to come up with a brilliant column name. I agonised for all of 30 seconds before coming up with “Mark My Words”, which, as I type is just the working title. Whether it still works for me by the end of the article, well, we’ll see, won’t we?

Anyway, title sorted (sort of), I agreed to the unpaid job on the proviso that they occasionally plug my books from time to time. They said, “we do already.” So, here we are.

Time to put fingers to keys and… type. But what? I could just agonise over this every month (like I do with everything) or I could put a plan together of articles I’m going to write. The latter sounds far too organised and completely out of character for me, so that won’t be happening.

I could write some stories as that’s kind of “my bag”, or I could write about Norfolk, or I could write about my delightfully dysfunctional life (of which I am the main dysfunctional part!) I’m still undecided – “Look Ma, no planning!”

Another option, I could just waffle. That’s probably what I’m best at. Not in real life as I’m the shy and retiring type, but when not constrained to the media of story-telling, I can indeed type some utter gabbling drivel.

Okay, decision made. I’ll do a bit of everything. Afterall, that is pretty much how I function anyway. I always have lots of things on the go. Why work with one web browser when you can open three (Chrome, Edge and Firefox) and have at least 10 tabs open on each at the same time. That way, I can spend all day losing track of what I’m doing.

You may have gathered from the above spiel, I’m a procrastinator. It’s a wonder how I ever get anything achieved. Well, I can move pretty fast when I put my mind to it, and one of these days I’ll finally reduce (eradicate?) my use of social media and doom-scrolling. It wasn’t always like this. I can definitely blame the internet (okay, I have to take my cut of the blame too). In fact, I can trace it back to around 2002 when I discovered a website that amalgamated all the news together. I HAD to know the latest on football, politics, football, economy, football, around the world, oh and football; This was especially dangerous during the football transfer window! And then came social media, and the stupid dopamine hits…

Anyway, I digress. Looks like I’ve typed enough for the first article with ease without actually saying anything useful. I told you I can ramble with the best of them. Don’t worry, they won’t all be like this. The next article will be along soon and it will be…. Sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you. Actually, I could, but it seems more exciting if I hold it back.

Okay, I’d better come to a decision on the column name. I dunno. Oh, did I mention I’m indecisive too? Argh! Ok, let’s do this thing. “Mark My Words” it is. Normally my brain would battle itself with internal conflict for an absolute age, but I don’t have time for the drama, and, besides, I can’t think of anything better. I’m not going to name every article Mark My Words 1, Mark My Words 2, etc., but you’ll be able to see my column by clicking on a tag at the bottom of every article. I think they’ve even tagged some previous articles I wrote too.

Oh, one last thing. I’ll kick this one off by mentioning what I’m listening to in the background, and this may be a running theme of my posts (if I remember!) As it’s almost upon us, I’m listening to the NorfolkPlaces festive playlist! Merry 29th November everyone! Zuzu’s pettles!