Five years on Blipfoto, 1825 different images

I joined Blipfoto as a wee experiment back in October 2012. A friend had given me a free membership and - since I enjoy taking photos - I thought it might be a fun way to give my haphazard hobby a daily deadline.

Now it's October 2017 and I've posted five years of blips here. In all that time I believe I've only forgotten to take a pic once - the nondescript Friday that was 11th of January 2013.

Looking back, we seem to live in a much scarier and less welcoming world than five years ago. Back then the UK had a stable coalition government and was proud to be a member of the European Union; now the country has a minority government lurching toward Brexit. Back then the President of the United States was Barack Obama, a man of intelligence and dignity; now the US has a Twitter tantrum throwing toddler for a leader.

Five years ago I was - unwittingly - about to hit a long, barren spell in my writing career. I had stepped away from the BBC TV drama series Doctors after four episodes, and was trying to graduate from Nina and the Neurons on CBeebies to writing for the pre-teen channel CBBC. Alas, that never quite came to pass, though I got very close more than a few times.

Five years ago I was teaching 2.5 days a week on the Creative Writing MA for Edinburgh Napier University, based at the beautiful Craighouse campus. Now I'm programme leader for the MA, working 4 days a week at the more central but rather more brutalist Merchiston campus.

Five years ago I was in the middle of a long hiatus from writing prose fiction, having burned myself out as a tie-in hack on pre-created characters.  Now I'm enjoying prose again and working on my first original novel, a historical thriller set in late Renaissance Florence that is also serving as the basis for a PhD in Creative Writing I'm undertaking via distance learning at Lancaster University.

Having looked back, an obvious question arises: where will I be in five years, and what will I be doing? I have some plans, some hopes, and some dreams but past brushes with hubris make me cautious when it comes to predictions. My goals: finish the novel and be working on another; finish my PhD and see where that takes me; work with an artist on an original graphic novel; and whatever other adventures that lie ahead.

Most of all I'd like to reach 2022 happy and healthy - everything else is a bonus. You never know, I might still be blipping in five years. Onwards!