And the great, one camel, race begins... again!

If this blog had a theme tune it would be Pilot's number one from January 1975 titled (wait for it...) 'January'. What? You mean you haven't heard it? It's a mainstay of the Guilty Pleasures output, performed by a band made up of the leftover bits and bobs from the Bay City Rollers; one of those songs that you're not really supposed to like but could happily hum along to after a few Campari and cokes. 

Anyway, the lyrics include the rather depressing adage, 'January, sick and tired, you've been hanging on me...' Oh dear. So, yes, it could so easily be a theme tune for the post-Christmas blues when all but the most optimistic and energised of us are feeling a little, well, sick and tired. 

However, it is not for that reason that I have chosen it as this blog's theme tune. It's because, looking back, that is when I post on this blog; in January. Yes, the good intentions flow like the outlandish New Year's resolutions in a bar full of drunken strangers at the stroke of midnight but tail off once the treadmill of teaching and writing and teaching and studying and teaching and marking etc etc starts. All good, fun spectator sports but they do take up time and things get pushed down the list of 'things to get around to one day', including keeping a regular blog. 

And then, at this time of the year, I teach a Creative Writing module at the University of Winchester that requires students to keep a blog whilst also following and commenting on the blogs of others. And so, like an inappropriate summer dress that you're only brave enough to wear thousands of miles from home in the company of strangers, the blog gets dusted off and emerges to greet its public for its annual outing as I try to set a good example... This year, however, will be different!

The angle, as ever, is to muse on my writing life. The how's, why's and what the hells of it all. And this year is a big year; not so much for the writer in me but certainly for the researcher in me. I'm embarking upon some epic research for a project that has been in the planning stage for some time now, including my first foray into life story interviewing. And the backdrop to it all includes some serious head scratching on the subject of truth in fiction based upon fact; is it ever possible to tell a 'true' story or does the writer's voice always get in the way? 

Or, as Mark Twain, or Hemingway, or, at least, someone may have once said, 'Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.' 

And on that cliched note (it's okay, as long as you acknowledge it...) I shall leave you with the fabulicious Pilot in all their 1975 rock/pop glory. Look out for how garddarn excited the band are to be attacked by enormous balloons whilst barely maintaining the facade of performing live...