What is Cary’s Almanac? Part 1
Mixed motives revealed
Over the next three articles dropping this week, I’d like to explain why this blog has a new title – Cary’s Almanac – and what that means for the year ahead. This exercise has been as much for my own benefit as for yours. But I hope it’s interesting.
It’s a healthy habit to look back and forward. We see it in the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer given to us by Jesus himself, to be prayed daily. In it, we look back at the previous day, seeing our sins that need forgiveness and relationships in need of repair. We then gird our loins for the day ahead, asking God not to lead us into temptation and that he would deliver us from the evil one.
So before we crack on with 2024, let’s look back for a moment.
That was Then
Looking at last year’s blogging, I can see that I’ve leapt around a variety of topics that mostly overlap faith, church and culture. Often, I reflect on an episode of the Cooper and Cary Have Words podcast that has just been released. I’ve occasionally put out partisan propaganda about my preferred vision for a Church of England that is undergoing radical internal change and schism. It’s been a mixed bag.
What’s my Motivation, Love?
My motives for writing something every week are always mixed. One main reason for writing weekly is the discipline of writing 800-1000 coherent words that I can bear to show another human being besides my wife. The more one does it, the better one gets. One also gets faster at writing, and sharper. In previous years, I’ve learned that I often start writing an introduction to an article which gets longer and longer until it becomes clear that it should be a separate article in itself.
My wife, who proofreads my articles, has helped me focus each instalment on one main point. Entire paragraphs are often deleted. Sometimes they are pasted into new documents where they grow into new articles in a literary equivalent of ‘potting on’. (Maybe it isn’t. I know very little about gardening). It’s already happened with this article that was going to be one post, but given it’s now running at 2000 words, I’m cutting it into three.
Blatant Self-Promotion
The aim has been to stay in touch with people who like the kind of work that I do and the way that I write. I’d be interested to know more about what you like about it in the comments below. I’m not looking for flattery. I’d like to know what the appeal is!
One thing I am doing with this is following advice given to all authors: build your mailing list.
Much as I love writing TV scripts, and plan to do more of that in 2024-25 and beyond, I also like to write things that do not lend themselves to the small screen. I am an author of a few books, like The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer, and will probably continue to be one for at least the next twenty years, Lord willing. So this blog is partly a mailing list for future work.
I have no control over whether you see my posts on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Algorithms in Silicon Valley or some data farm in Iceland decide that. But if I have your email address, I can contact you directly. I take that responsibility very seriously. I don’t want to waste your time with self-promoting junk. I want to bless you with self-promoting genius.
But these mixed motives met with mixed success. Last year, I toured my Water into Wine show and released a video-captured version of it. I blogged about it repeatedly here in the hope has been that some of you would go and buy it. The ‘streaming version’ of Water into Wine was been wildly unsuccessful. Hardly anyone has actually bought it. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the sales page itself is not compelling. I can see that many people go to the page and then decide not to buy it. 97% of the people who visit the page don’t buy it according to my SamCart dashboard.
I’m not for a moment trying to make you feel sufficiently guilty so that you go and purchase it. I can prove that because you won’t find a link to buy it anywhere on this page. Told you.
That’s all in the past. That was 2023. This is 2024. I’m done with the past. I’m looking into the future.
Actually, that’s not quite true.
In the future, or 2024 at least, I want to look more into the past. Next time, I’ll explain what I mean, the plan for the year ahead and what Cary’s Almanac is.
Barry and I looked back at 2023 on the Cooper and Cary Have Words podcast which you can listen to here as well as finding links to various podcast players:
I like your honesty James. It's refreshing (and entertaining).