Category: Life and Culture

Well, as per tradition, it’s time to plan my New Year’s Resolutions 2017.

I’m a great believer in self-development, which is why I like to take this opportunity to look back on what I tried to achieve in the last year – and to see how far I got!  I think that setting clear, quantifiable targets and letting others know you’ve done so is a fantastic motivator for actually doing them.  But it’s by seeing how (or if…) I’ve achieved them that helps me see where I’d like to push myself next. Read More

Around this time last year I wrote this post about New Year’s Resolutions, and what I was hoping to achieve throughout 2015.  Without even looking at those resolutions I can already say I’m really happy with the past year and what I’ve accomplished.  I’ve done things that, if not life-changing, are certainly milestones for me in my life.  Let’s take a look at my resolutions of yesteryear…

Last New Year’s Resolutions: 2015:

1. Maintain my blog.   Well, I resolved to post on liamsdesk at least once a week and, whilst I started off strong, you can probably see that by June I was posting mostly once a month.  A failure then?  Nah.  I made this resolution in order to build up a body of writing and to learn to write on demand.  Just because I haven’t been writing blog posts doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing – which reminds me, let’s take a look at Resolution #2…
2. Write creatively at least once a week. I’ll give this a tick in the box.  I’ve written pretty consistently throughout this year and I’ve got a lot to show for it: I published The Witching Hours in May.  To say I’m happy about self-publishing my very own book is an understatement.  But I also wrote and released The Patchwork Carnival, my second publication, as a birthday present to myself in October.  Two books to my name is a great turnout for 2015 and I’m desperate to add another title to that list!
3. Crack the morning jog.   Back in January I would go for a short one-and-a-half mile run before work a couple of days a week.  At the weekend I’d stretch to a three-miler.  Not only have I cracked the morning jog, it’s now actually my favourite time of day to go.  No one is around, the roads aren’t busy.  The sun isn’t too bright and it’s not too warm.  Additionally, using stats I’ve recorded on the handy WalkJogRun, I’ve gone for 69 runs (averages at 1.3 runs a week) and run a total of 246 miles.  My average pace wass 08:58 minute miles; an improvement on last year.  And in November I ran a half-marathon!  Loads of improvement here: I’m really happy with my progress.

This morning at the unsocial hour of 3:47 am, the Sun, Earth and Moon were arranged in perfection alignment.  The Sun’s rays, distorted and coloured by the Earth’s atmosphere, beamed upon the Moon – itself orbiting close to Earth as the Autumn Equinox approaches – and turned it a glowing red.  This is a fairly rare astronomical happenstance – it last happened in 1982 and won’t happen again until 2048. It’s called the Super Blood Moon.

I hauled myself up at half three in the morning to have a look at it, and I’m glad I did.  Here’s three lessons I learned from seeing the Super Blood Moon:

Getting out of bed is always a good thing.

Actually, I’ve suspected this one for a while and based my writing schedule around it.  If I didn’t have to sleep I wouldn’t – you don’t even realise when you’re asleep that you are asleep.  So there’s very little to take from it besides the obvious physical and mental recharge.  As soon as you’re awake you can appreciate the sleep you’ve had – or, in this morning’s case, didn’t have.  Which is endlessly preferable to not being able to appreciate either.