My first (and last) post ended up being rather prophetic, for reasons I don’t feel would be appropriate to discuss. I have more integrity than to voice any criticism or judgement of others on a public forum.

Instead, I wanted to think a little about what I want from this blog. My last one was almost exclusively about mental health issues, and I expect that that will be the primary focus of this – but I don’t want it to be the only one. I have a range of physical health issues that I haven’t had anywhere to complain about yet (or, at least, nowhere that has survived), so I would expect some occasional discussion of those. However, I think it’s also important that I write not just about health concerns in their myriad guises. When I feel like it, I’d like to be able to discuss politics, telly, books, blah blah.

Also – and this is by no means frequent – I do a bit of (computerised) drawing. It can be a cathartic pursuit, or at least one that represents internal thought processes, so it may be worth splattering it on these pages on occasion.

So, in essence, this is just my blog; mental health-leaning, probably, but ultimately wider-ranging.

For those of you that have followed me from my former home, I’d warn you that I don’t expect the style of writing to be quite the same here. It was once said of that site that I wrote ‘essays’, and I did; it was rare for me to write a post less than 2,000 odd words in length, and they were usually more.

There are a number of reasons I don’t want to necessarily continue that trend. One is that, as a budding writing professional, I need to learn the skills to employ some measure of brevity. Secondly, owing partly to that potential career and partly due to feeling well enough to be able to do ‘real’ stuff, I don’t always have the time for such verbosity any more. Finally, whilst when I started a post my fingers seemed to take on a mind of their own and they just wrote WROTE WROTE with little conscious input from me, I did often aim for a specific type of narrative. I loved the idea of story-telling, and believe that to a large extent I achieved it. It’s not that I want to abandon that as such – my partner is of the view that my long, intricate posts were my best, for example – but I kind of feel that it became an expected convention.

The former Vivid ended up, despite her best intentions, writing for an audience. She wants this blog entirely for herself (though with the engagement of a few trusted others, of course), as the first was initially intended. If that means shorter, less descriptive, less prosaic material, then that’s what it’ll be. But then again, this is only the second post, and it’ll take time to settle down here and see what direction At the Mountains of Madness will take.

In short, I’m not ruling anything in, but I’m not ruling anything out either. It’s a case of ‘let’s wait and see’.

Anyhow, I want to thank those of you that have joined me so far 🙂 I hope to maybe, in time, gain a few new readers, but I nevertheless like the idea of this place being quieter, simpler, focused…more in the background.

And this time, I’m actually going to try and reply to your always-welcome comments 🙂

Thanks for reading, my lovelies. Here’s to the future!

Viv x