5 Blog Posts I Didn’t Write This Week

And now, ladies and gentle man: in the grand old tradition of Lazy Summer Journalism, I present to you a list of potential blog posts I didn’t write this week, followed in some cases by a half-assed explanation for why I didn’t write them, and sometimes no explanation at all.

You’re welcome.

1. Why I’m Loving All These New Grip-Lit Book Covers (Same As The Old Covers)

Is it just me, or are book covers getting even more samey than before? Now that publishers are trying to squeeze the last pennies of profit from Grip-Lit – the genre du jour – petrified that this fashion will be over before their new collection is released to the wild, matchy-matchy book covers are rolling off the conveyor belt faster than you can say “the next Paula Hawkins”. They think I haven’t noticed. Sigh.

2. Tark And Mara Do Something Mildly Amusing

I know, I know. It’s been ages since I’ve written anything about Dublin’s favourite arseholes. A couple of posts were in the pipeline but got jammed in there somewhere, probably because Mara lapsed and ate an entire head of celery. When this dead, moist Irish summer is finished with me, I’ll flush them out. Actually, now that I’m thinking in pipe metaphors, Mara’s similarity to a pipe cleaner is striking, isn’t it? Although that’s more of a simile than a metaphor, so I’d better stop there.

3. Why I’m Loving The Littlewoods Ireland Blog Awards 2016

Even I wouldn’t stoop so low as to write an entire post of shameless sucking-up in an effort to impress the judges of The Littlewoods Ireland Blog Awards, where I’m longlisted in 2 categories –Books & Literature Blog and Best Blog Post (for this rant about women’s fiction). No sir. There’s no way I would name the main sponsor of the Littlewoods Ireland Blog Awards 2016 as many times as I could fit into one post just because I was desperately trying to make the gargantuan leap from a scarily talented longlist (of the Littlewoods Ireland Blog Awards 2016) to the shortlist in either of the two categories I’m up for. Absolutely not. I would never do that. Littlewoods Ireland.

4. Why It’s So Great Blogging During Holiday Months When Nobody’s Reading Blogs

The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that this post wasn’t released early this morning, as is my usual schtick. That’s because I hadn’t written it yet. It’s like December round here. Everyone is on holidays from the internet. My stats are down. Contrary to popular conspiracy theory, I am a human being, and as subject to the vagaries of online popularity as anyone else. It’s hard to get motivated when you’re the only one behind the desk.

5. My Last Blog Post: I’m Never Blogging Again Because I’ve Just Won The Lottery And I’m Moving Somewhere Tropical With Poor Wi-Fi

Yeah. There are literally millions of reasons I didn’t write this particular post, largely to do with the fact that even my online life is too full of reality sometimes. I really have to work on my sense of the fantastical.

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So if there’s anybody out there – people in the southern hemisphere, perhaps – or other suckers like me drifting aimlessly through the silly season – what did you not write about this week? Tell me. Or else I’ll be forced to fight my listlessness with another listicle.