I’ve always been fond of “significant” numbers, of milestones and notable figures. I suspect I like them less for any actual achievement that they represent (after all, technically speaking reaching 101 of something is more of an achievement than 100, and yet the latter is disproportionately lauded!) and more for their large round numberiness, but the effect is the same either way. I like a milestone.
For more than a few blog pages, 50 posts wouldn’t necessarily feel like a milestone – that’s just a post a week for a year, with Christmas and Easter off into the bargain. But this blog’s never tended towards the brief or the pithy, to my discredit, and I’m honestly shocked that I’ve apparently written and published 49 of these things already, with this the 50th on the way, quite literally, as I keep writing.
So…yeah, welcome to the Blog of Mazarbul’s Golden Jubilee post, which is really just an excuse for me to reflect a bit on what the blog actually is, and where it might be going. And I might throw a few numbers in there, because I love meaningless numbers.
You’d think that after 50 blog posts, a blog might possess a couple of key attributes – namely, it might by that point be clear what the blog is about. And it might also have taken less than three and a half years to get there.
Alas, neither accusation can fairly be levelled against this page. My writing rate continues to be glacial (I have apparently written 1.2 blog posts a month since starting this project)…though to be fair, this has both increased over time, and ebbs and flows a bit…I’m already pretty sure that December will once again be a barren month for me, whereas the middle of the year has blazed along!
More pertinently, my posts tend to be horribly long. Just 8 posts apparently sit below the 1,000-word threshold, with most of those being updates about the blog rather than “real” posts (a notable exception being my absolute shortest post ever). Apparently most of my posts sit in the 3,000-4,000 word range, with a few outliers beyond 5,000 words (including this monster on canon, apparently my longest post yet), though my mean average is 2,500 words a post. Satisfyingly, I’ve written over 123,000 words in total, for about 2,870 words per month and, honestly? That seems ok to me.
Encouragingly, I am also writing more from year to year. 2023 alone has accounted for 21 posts and about 50,000 words, with at least a few more on their way before the year’s end…by contrast, I managed just 14 posts across 2020-2021, when I started this silly thing (though admittedly, I was also writing a master’s thesis at the time!). I’ve never been much good at keeping to a posting schedule or anything like that, but I am at least slowly and surely increasing my output.
None of this necessarily answers the question of what this blog is about, though, or why I’m still writing it.
There’s a strongly Tolkienian bent, of course. But also a strong bent towards trying to understand and analyse more mainstream fiction. There’s a bit more theology than I was expecting there to be (I am a very bad theologian), and perhaps a little less political or social commentary than I thought there would be (I am also a very bad sociologist).
There are also a few things that it is not. It’s not a blog for reviews, at least not directly. I generally prefer to write about things that I know well, and to dig into the whys and whats of those things, which is a trait ill-suited to keeping up with the latest releases and trends. It’s also not a blog that leans terribly heavily on adaptations of Tolkien, or on “lore”…at least, not lore as a series of trivia details and facts to be learned by rote.
It is also not, amusingly enough, a blog about music, despite that being my training and my daily work. I rather suspect that I write enough about music, music theory and musicology in “real” life to satisfy me, and so I end up barely touching on it here. I’m not saying I’ll never write a music-oriented post here, mind…just that, so far, I haven’t wanted to. Art, on the other hand, has proven a recurring theme, especially over the last year, and some of the posts I’m proudest of have been considerations of art, aesthetics, and artistic philosophy from various angles.
I suppose, really, that slowly brings me toward trying to answer the question of “why”. Why does this blog exist, why’ve I written fifty posts that cannot in good conscience be wholly ‘linked’ under some umbrella theme, and why am I going to keep on going with the blog?
And that at least, is an easy enough answer. This blog’s only underlying theme is that it’s about whatever I’m interested in. Often that’s Tolkien, or fiction, or art, or whatever. Sometimes it’s elaborate jokes, or actual novel fiction.
At the end of the day, though, this blog’s still what it was always intended to be – it’s a place for me to write stuff, to force myself to finish stuff, and to practise composing stuff. I like to imagine I’m a moderately competent author, but I’m never going to be any sort of an author at all (even a bad one) unless I actually write things, and finish things, and put things out for people to read.
And, well, I do love to write. I love digging into critical readings, trying to consider philosophical questions, even writing creatively and inventing new stories. But I’ve never been very good at actually sitting down and doing so. I’d write in fits and bursts, spurts of inspiration that would almost inevitably be half-finished.
Those fits and bursts remain, and I suppose that’s inevitable – but I think I’m slowly eliminating them, too, or at least reducing them. I’m also actually just forcing myself to publish stuff, rather than to endlessly rework and edit and consider…I like to think I’m a pretty decent editor, and a dreadful author, and this blog’s a chance for me to develop the author and to allow the editor to learn to let go.
So…what’s next?
More of the same, really. I’ve got a few more posts I know I want to write this year, including a cracker about original sin, death and Elves that I think is genuinely worthwhile. Having reached the 50-post mark, I feel like it’s about time that I make my own personal Tom Bombadil theory public, as is obligatory, so look for that before the end of the year. I’m toying with a few other ideas…I hear multiverse stuff is hot? And I really wanna dive into The Power of Love as a trope eventually, though I suspect that’ll wait for the new year. That particular post’s been in my ideas file since day 1, though, and I’m keen to work through it properly
I’m also keen to explore a little more creative writing. I’ve been experimenting with some short stories and some “myth/fairy tale” style pieces, which I’d like to share sooner or later. I’m also working on some longer form stuff, on actually writing some sort of book eventually. This is hardly novel – nearly everyone seems to have ‘their book’, with only the pesky task of actually writing the damn thing standing in the way. But I do have a couple (depending on how you measure it) of book ideas that I’m really, really keen to do something with, to get through the interminable stages of developing and drafting and redrafting and editing and even actually writing…nothing concrete to share, not yet. But there will be.
And of course, that’s really what this blog is about – it’s terribly self-centred, in a way, a notebook for me to try and write and think things through and sometimes finish things. It’s a platform for me to force myself to write, to practise writing. As a musician, I practise music all the time, it’s one of the first things drilled into any budding artist. And that’s what this blog was meant to be, and really still is – it’s a place where I can practise putting words together and seeing what they sound like in symphony.
It’ll never be anything more than that, alas, and it means that it’ll never be perfect, because that’s not my intent either. If I wanted to write something perfect, I’d never write again. But hopefully it’s always a bit better, and hopefully the next 50 posts will be a bit better again.
So, anyway, that’s my terribly self-indulgent and dull reflection on The Blog of Mazarbul – but, before I finish up, and if you’ve made it this far, then thank you for reading..both this post, or any of the interminably long 49 posts that have preceded it. It’s a curious fact that, ultimately, this blog is indeed for me…but it’s also for me to force myself to put my writing out into the public eye, to force me to become comfortable with others reading my work. It’s not an easy thing, and I’m only now becoming mildly secure in the idea…so, yeah, thank you. The fact that I know people might read my writing, that it’s publicly available, is both terrifying and thrilling, and, well, I think I need that. I don’t need people to read any of this nonsense, but I need it to be possible that people can read it – and if they do, and find some sort of value or worth in it, then all the better. So thank you, for indulging this very selfish passion and very selfish blog, and let’s hope I’ve got another fifty or so posts in me of moderately improved quality for the next 42 months!
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