Someone suggested
recently that it might be an idea if I gathered together all of my articles and
published them in book form. I wondered at the time whether there was much
point given that they are all freely available online. But on reflection I
realised that a website is not easy to navigate when it becomes as large as
mine. Anyway, I was intrigued by just how many pages I had written and just how
many words. So I set about gathering everything together. What I present here
is very lightly edited. When I began writing, I had a tiny readership and so I
dashed off an article and simply published it without further thought. I spell
poorly and remain largely indifferent to punctuation. Writing is simply a way
of coming up with new ideas. As long as the idea is expressed clearly, then I
could care less if a comma is missing or if it should rather be a semi colon.
This book has over
hundred articles, is over 500 pages long and contains over 130,000 words.
That’s a lot. It’s considerably longer than my dissertation. But then my blog
has been read by considerably more people than all my academic work combined.
What started out as a tiny band of readers who I met on twitter has built until
now I have more readers than I ever expected.
Writing for me has
always been first and foremost about being read. I like to share ideas. But
it’s not only about that. It’s about developing a skill which every writer
hopes will turn into something more. It’s about recognition and being valued.
Some people train to be doctors, others lawyers. All of us when we work, expect
some reward. My skill is writing. It’s really the only skill I have and I hope
to develop it. It was for this reason that in the middle of the independence
campaign I took a long break from blogging. I did some academic work and I
worked on some fiction. When I stopped blogging, I did not know if I would
start up again. I had lost the motivation to continue and had run out of ideas.
I began also to think that the subject was not worth studying. Why devote so
much time to such a paltry topic as Scottish nationalism?
Now I publish my
complete works. But who is to say if they really are complete. There may be a
second edition some time from now with many more articles. In the end, it is up
to you. No publisher would publish a second edition if the first did not do
well.
What I do is not free.
It costs me a huge amount of time and effort. I wake up early in the morning on
a Saturday and write. Sometimes I have no thought as to what new idea I can
come up with that week, and then each week I wait to see how the idea will be
understood. I’m not sure there is any more to write about this topic. This
collection of articles contains every argument I can think of which might
refute Scottish nationalism. Yet I also know that the fight must continue, for
they are far from beaten.
I may well be back next
week or the week after or in a few months. I’m drawn to the blog like a moth to
a flame and write even when I ought not and when really I’m too tired and just
need a break. I would be content with very little. If one out of every one
hundred of my readers thought it was worth the price of a cup of coffee to see
what one of my books was like, I would be absolutely delighted. People whose
judgement I respect assure me that my work is worth reading. I would not make
it available if it were not. If a newspaper offered to republish one of my
articles I would be very proud and very grateful. I hope it is not too much to
ask that there should be a little quid pro quo.
There’s a song I like very much about exile and
parting
………………….my sad tears are falling,
To think that from Erin
and thee I must part,
It may be for years,
and it may be forever?
Then why art thou
silent, thou voice of my heart?
It may be for years,
and it may be forever;
Then why art thou
silent, Kathleen, Mavourneen?
I am a long way from
home and I don’t know when I’ll be coming back again. Scotland seems very far
away, because it is far away. We have our own problems here in Russia and my
energies must mainly be devoted to doing what I can here.
The foundation of
everything I do is Christian existentialism and the philosophy of Søren
Kierkegaard. He wrote a book called Either/Or.
In the end, everything comes down to a choice. And for that reason I’ve
always been quite strict. Either this
book is the end, or it continues. It’s a
choice, but it’s not only my choice.
So it may be next week, or it may be forever.
If you like my writing, you can find my books Scarlet on the
Horizon (book, Kindle), An Indyref
Romance (book, Kindle) and Complete
Works (book, Kindle) on Amazon. I appreciate your support.
