The time has come for changes

Keen readers of this blog may have noticed that last week there was no post. Work, other commitments and tiredness got the better of me and I was was unable to find time to write one. The truth is that, ever since Christmas, I’ve been struggling to find time to write. I hope I’ve been maintaining the quality and keeping the blog interesting, but these difficulties, and failing to produce my usual weekly post at all last Tuesday, have made me think about the future.

Over the two and a half years I’ve been producing Only Human Translators, many people have asked me how I kept up the pace of writing a post every week. I always answered that I didn’t find it a problem: I had plenty to write about and I always seemed to find the time. But I also said that if I ever didn’t have anything to say, or if I found it a strain to keep writing the blog, I would think again. Now, that time has come.

Whether I actually have move commitments than I used to have I’m not sure, but it’s beginning to feel like it. Apart from activities I can directly call work, I’m involved in different types of cooperation projects with other translators, I’m helping with the website for the METM17 conference in October and I’m in the middle of organising some changes to my own website. On top of this, when I do get those changes up and running, the time will have come to start blogging for clients in my source languages, and that is going to take more time and effort. That’s without even mentioning my personal life with my family. Something, as they say, has got to give.

I really don’t want to abandon this blog completely, though. I like putting down my experiences for fellow translators, I enjoy reading colleagues’ opinions on the issues I discuss and I feel great satisfaction when I find I’ve helped someone else who’s been struggling with similar problems to my own. I also want to keep up some sort of regular structure for my posts. People tell me I’m a disciplined person, and I always answer that if I am disciplined there’s a good reason for it – underneath, I’m the laziest person I know. If I tell myself I can write whenever I feel like it, I might never get round to posting again. So my plan is to make this blog monthly instead of weekly. I hope I’ll be able to stick to this and produce a post for the third Tuesday in every month.

In the meantime, if you’ve got any topics you’d like me to discuss or to give my view on, please let me know, either by commenting here or by sending me an e-mail. I’ve still got ideas for future posts and obviously I won’t be using them up so quickly now, but it would be interesting to know what readers are interested in.

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