Have you ever felt that you have too many irons in the fire? I mean, I think it’s good to have a few, but just lately I’ve realised that I have far too many and so I’ve done a spot of online pruning.

In short, I’ve done away with the podcast (which you knew already) and now I’ve called temps (as the French would say) on the website. Well, that’s a bit too succinct perhaps. Let me elaborate.

As it stood I had a website, a blog, a podcast on multiple platforms, a totally amateurish Youtube channel and two social media outlets. That’s quite a hefty web presence for one fibromyalgic man who sometimes finds it damn near impossible to even get out of bed some mornings. Far too much in fact. I’ve felt like I’ve been spinning plates for some time now and they’re beginning to fall.

Ergo…

From here on, Blessham Hall (where you are right now) is my main outlet. A one-stop-shop as it were for all things Stevenson. I noticed recently that I didn’t need a separate website that was draining my time, energy and finances in equal measure. Foolishly, I hadn’t realised that I had it all here on a plate in the first place.

So you may notice that there have been a few tweaks to Blessham Hall. Oh, nothing Earth shattering but it now has the feel of a proper website rather than just a blog. The old alan-stevenson.co.uk website will remain live until the subscription runs out in November and then it shall be no more leaving just this here site for me to maintain.

Also, I’m taking down all those Stevenson Speaks videos from Youtube. Let’s face it, they’re about as professional as Harry Maguire and about as easy on the eye as well. I know I have a face for radio and nobody wants to see it. I was an ugly child in fact; my mother used to hang a sausage around my neck so that the dog would play with me. Happy times!

I’ll still have a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram as they are easy to manage and don’t take up a lot of my time. Likewise, the new blog that I mentioned last time will be going live soon and I’ll be looking at fortnightly posts on there so that too will be manageable.

I think my biggest problem is that I tried to run before I could walk where my online activity was concerned. Too much too soon. I mean, hardly any bugger even knows about me and yet there I was attempting to do podcasts, videos and interactive websites like some kind of Johnny Come-Lately.

Nay, nay and thrice nay, I need to just focus on what I do best (well, I think so at least) and that’s writing good content; be it in the shape of novels or blog posts. And in any case, calling myself an author, novelist, blogger, podcaster and Youtuber was becoming tiresome and more than a mouthful.

Yesterday I worked on Blessham Hall for several hours to get it how I wanted and I’m happy with the results. I also cancelled that Go Daddy subscription for the other website that was clearing over a hundred quid out of my bank account every year. What a dozy prat I’ve been.

But the thing now is that it all feels rather cathartic having purged myself of all that weight of stuff. Just stuff, that’s all it was. Stuff that clogged up my mind and time that could have been spent better elsewhere.

Talking of which, I wrote nearly 10,000 words last week on the next novel and it feels tremendous. Oh sure, my arms hurt like hell from the physical effort but my head feels something akin to achievement.

This has been a strange period of time for me. But now I’ve had bit of a clear out and I can see past all that clutter now and it’s like a breath of fresh air. 2023 hasn’t been the best year for Ange and myself. We’ve had terrible health problems and lost some good friends. On Friday our adopted cat, Sooty, passed away which has left us both a bit on the devastated side of things. Ange in particular has taken it very badly. So it really is a great relief to me to do all this streamlining as I’ve felt in limbo for quite a while now, bouncing between this, that and the other without any real sense of direction. Now, I actually feel I have one.

So do me a favour and point people in the direction of Blessham Hall won’t you. I always say that word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways of advertising anything.

Thanks for sticking with me through all the turbulence.

A x