“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway?
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

(not writing) is both the the title of this post and also what, in the context of the WordPress Writing 101 course, on which I embarked a couple of weeks ago with the best of intentions, I have been doing or (not doing).

So, now, during my lunch break, over a crafty coffee, or hunched up on the train (yes, I am once more commuting to work by train rather than as a solitary occupant of an expensive pollutant on four wheels) I am playing catch up with last week’s posts.

I write but I am not a ‘writer’.

By day, I am a consultant in the media and telecommunications industry, something that pays the bills and, as it happens, involves a great deal of communication, both written and verbal. So, yes, I write a lot for a living, and have learned much from many who have tried to make me write in a crisper, clearer voice ‘can you try to use less flowery language’ or perhaps ‘if you can’t get that idea on to a single page you’re just going to lose them….’

But, I am not a ‘writer’.

Although, I want to be. Try to be. And will keep trying.

My first ‘real’ blog kicked off in the fall of 2011. That is when a little project called belgradestreets.com was born. A little project that, as they say, had legs. A project that gave me two published books of my photographs, two exhibitions (so far) and a documentary on Serbian Television. And an ambition to do more, a lot more, with my photographic aspirations.

That first project was the child of my lifelong passion for photography.

My photography is (one of the things) that I do when I am not consulting, (not writing), or anything else. When crafting pages for that blog, those first two books, I echewed words (I’m not a writer) and let my photos tell the story that I had in mind.

My second blogging project kicked off, again, as a photoblog, a place to share my feelings and views about living and working in Belgium that I called belgianstreets.com

This is also where I began to muck around with words. Still not writing, but not just pretty pictures either. Then, just over a year ago, I took part in the WordPress Photography 101 course and, not content with just posting pretty (or not) pictures, I began to stretch my writing muscles a little.

That, in a roundabout way, resulted in this blog. Not a platform from which to promote my photographic ambitions (yes, that’s another putative project in progress) and not a blog featuring a single place or theme. This blog is where I now do my (not writing). Earlier this year, I participated in two great WordPress courses. Writing 201 in which I published some quite dreadful poetry, and Writing 101 which, of course, I took part in later to learn how (not) to write.

And so, here I am, still (not writing).

And, if you are still here, and if you did, thank you for reading, I really do appreciate it.

This post was written in response the the prompt for Day 9 of the WordPress Writing 101 course in which we were asked to write about what we do when we are not writing. In addition, we were asked to plan to interview a fellow writer, more about that in due course.