Harriet Archer: Girl Reporter

If you’re looking for incisive and cutting social commentary from a witty and erudite figure – you may be disappointed. Or perhaps not. I dream of writing and being a writer. This clashes horrendously with my particular reality of domestic servitude and slaving for wages which, unfortunately, takes up the bulk of my spare time. One day…

And this is where I begin. 

Why on earth did I start blogging?

Well, I’ve been a diary writer since I was a teenager (and by crikey, they make some interesting and very amusing reading), and I’ve had some kind of blog on the go (off and on) since I discovered that I can write stuff and put it on the internets. Where people can see it. And maybe comment on it and you know maybe tell me what they think of my writing. Except…that I’m shy and tend not to tell people that I have a blog. This, I guess, totally defeats the purpose of HAVING A BLOG SO OTHER PEOPLE CAN READ WHAT I WRITE.

Um. Oops.

The first blog I had was some Yahoo thing more than ten years ago, where I ranted on about nothing much. I don’t know what ever happened to it – I imagine it’s floating in the ether somewhere. Then there was a dalliance with an online journal – long since deleted. And now, I have this one…

But why do I blog? It’s something I do for myself, mainly – which is why I’m not that bothered with not having a gigantic audience and hundreds of comments and the like. I am a frustrated writer – my head is full of beginnings and endings. I’m just not very good at middles, so the beginnings and endings stay in my head. However, I am never going to get better at writing middles if I don’t write at all so I blog.

I set myself a personal challenge a couple of years ago to write at least two 500 word pieces a month so that I was writing consistently, and hopefully developing my ability to get a selection of sentences on a page – preferably with a beginning, a middle and an end – and in that order. However, stuff happened (as it does) and my head was too full of learning new things to be bothering with endings, beginnings and middles.

Now, I write when the mood takes me. I write about what I think about things, tales of my family, how crap I am at housework, things that make me cross… Actually, it’s ALL about me! So, let me see… Who’s who?

Harriet: That would be moi. I’m a would-be writer, amateur family historian, domestic goddess, mother of two, missus to the Bloke…oh, and I work as well. It’s taken me a bit over 18 months to get my head around what I actually do for a living (more or less, but don’t quiz me on it, please).

The Bloke of the House: He’s the mister to my missus, father of the offspring and all-round Very Useful Chap. I’m quite fond of him so I am planning to keep him, even though we haven’t made it official yet…

The Offsprings: There’s the Big Kid who is generally lovely and lulled us into a false sense of security. Then we have the Little Kid who is best described as Not Like His Brother. However, he is very cute and very very funny.

Mrs Archer: that would be my mother…She pops up from time to time

I would like to get back into the swing of writing a couple of times a month at least. And I would really like to stuff my beginnings and endings with a decent middle one day…but until that day comes, I will content myself with writing – be it for an audience of millions or an audience of one.