Today is the tenth birthday of shepline. You can see the first day’s inauspicious posts here. It seems an appropriate moment to therefore pause for a moment, consider where I was then, where I am now, and reflect on a decade of journal writing.
The writings of 12 February 2003 are not the first entries to be contained within my LiveJournal for I have since gone back and back-filled it with transcriptions of earlier attempts at diary writing or with flashbacks from my memory. This last decade has been my single, longest attempt at writing any kind of diary.
So where was I in 2003…?
Job then: Electronic Content Quality Controller. Basically the guy to make the online versions of some scientific journals like the (Thrice) Monthly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Job now: Web and Digital Media Officer. The web designer for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University. I also look after the social networking and do a bit of video work. Its a lot more creative work than a decade ago.
Writing then: I was in the wilderness years. The then titled Blood & Fire was started, but writing wasn’t go so well, so I was busy revising my previous novel Flyht. I still have a fondness for Flyht and may yet dust off the cobwebs to it.
Writing now: My second novel, Mr Tumnal, having published my first, The End Of All Worlds during the last year. I’m nearing the end of this one, after which I will have to revise it, edit it, and then decide whether to try the traditional route of publishing it or take the Indie route again.
Life then: Single. Dreadful levels of self-confidence. Recently bullied at work, starting this journal was part of a plan I had to try and get more confidence in me. About the same time I also became a First Aider at work and joined the Social Committee. Approaching my 30th birthday. Wore no jewellery. At the time of starting my journal I had no pets, although I would soon take on my first cat, Pepper.
Life now: Married. Met Emma on match.com we now have 8 cats, 3 chickens, 2 bunnies, 1 hamster, and some fish. I wear a wedding ring and a necklace – usually amber (I purchased an amber pendant whilst on holiday in Estonia in the summer of 2003), but sometimes Obsidian or a small piece of Celtic glass, or (rarely) Murano glass). In the intervening years I have had coaching for Aspergers, been made redundant from my job at (then) Blackwell Publishing (replaced by a machine), had a spell at OUP doing something similar but with online books, a short spell of unemployment, and been ‘restructured’ once whilst in my current job. I’ve also met my best friend, online, and since married her.
