For singers and bands, history shows their second album is often much harder to bring forth than the first.

The sheer euphoria and novelty that helped fuel the debut has often become a thing of the past once it comes time to roll up the sleeves again for a second bite of the cherry. The added expectation that accompanies a follow-up second stab at success is another factor that ensures lightning doesn’t always strike twice.

And so it is in the blogging world.

This much heralded second year of SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK has been just as satisfying for me as the first yet my bolstered experience as an on-line chronicler of thoughts and views  ensures I naturally no longer harbour those same freshman-style “I’m gonna rock the world with this post” thoughts to quite the same extent as perhaps I naively may have (embarrassing as it is now for me to admit that) back in my debut twelve months in 2017.

No matter.

I still get some semblance of that ‘first-ever kiss with fireworks’ feeling every time I have my finger hovering over that all-powerful ‘publish’ button. As long as I have that feeling in my nerve-endings to some degree I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. Given that I originally conceived SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK as a three-year project, and 2019 marks the beginning of that tri-year, I’m pretty content with how things have been travelling this second year.

2018 for me marked a time of new beginnings.

New car. New house. And with LOST IN SPACE FIRESIDE, a brand new blog. And I’m not done yet. I still have a couple more surprises up my sleeve before this year is done. You’re sure to learn about those sometime during 2019.

Journey with me now (can’t believe I just wrote that with a fully straight face) as we take a thumbnail sketch look back on the shaken-snowglobe-shenanigans of SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK these past twelve months –

Movies

For All The Money in the World (January)

12 Strong (March)

The Wall (March)

Chappaquiddick (May)

The Incredibles 2 (July)

Entebbe (August)

Room 237 (October)

Books

The Operator by Robert O’Neill (February)

Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton (March)

A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena (March)

Swastika Night by Katherine Burdekin (March)

And Fire Came Down by Emma Viskic (April)

Friday, the Thirteenth by Thomas W. Lawson (April)

A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland (April)

Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce (April)

Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Sean Penn (May)

The Book Ninja by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus (June)

The Hunter & Other Stories of Men by David Cohen (October)

Favourite 2018 Book Titles List (December)

Television

Midsummer Murders (January)

Underbelly Files : Chopper (February)

60 Minutes Interview with Jacinda Ardern (March)

Author Interviews

Stuart Aken (January)

Iain Ryan (February)

Jim Toomey (May)

Deborah Abela (August)

R.I.P.

Neil Simon (August)

Burt Reynolds (September)

Bonus Reads

Unearthed (January) (Mine)

The Small Town with 5 Indie Book Stores (January)

David Bowie’s Top 100 Books List (January)

Afterglow (March) (Mine)

Desert Island Discs (April)

Imagined Descriptions of Women by Bad Male Authors (April)

2018 Top 40 Book Club Reads (April)

The Book Depository’s Top 95 Books Of All Time List (May)

The Hyman Archive (World’s Largest Magazine Collection) (June)

My Books (Bridget Whelen blogsite) (October)

Weird Whacky Wow!

Pick a Slogan (January)

Death by Cricket Bowling Machine  (January)

Designer Icecream Handbags (March)

Death in Gold Class (March)

Pranking Oxley Golf Course (March)

Planking (April)

Sydney Road Rage Chainsaw Incident Madness (April)

Top Ten Martial Arts Movies (June)

Where the Money’s Buried (June)

Go Premium! (June)

Letter from Prince Charles (August)

Wrap Advertising for Cars (September)

Top 5 Spokespeople for SWS (November)

Computer Art (November)

Whatever Happened to Crop Circles? (December)

The Issues

Parkrun Jogger’s Noise (February)

My New Favourite Politician (March)

Core Values (March)

AVENGER’S: INFINITY WAR release on ANZAC DAY (April)

The Great Vanilla Slice Ripoff (June)

Controlled Demolition Theory of 9/11 (September)

The Events

Sth Korean Winter Olympics (March)

The Oscars (March)

West End Icecream Festival (March)

Winx sets world record (March)

Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (April)

Inugural Women’s NRL Competition (April)

World Naked Gardening Day (May)

Jacinda Adern’s baby daughter (June)

New Car Purchase (July)

Thai Cave Rescue (July)

Sale of Brady Bunch House (July)

Oz Comic Con (September)

International Skeptics Day (October)

LOST IN SPACE FIRESIDE Launch (October)

International Teacher’s Day (October)

Halloween 2018 (October)

House move (November)

 

 Used This Year

Made with the Scent of Juniper & Witch Hazel

The Only Blog With No Vampires

Pulsating Word Ectoplasm

Better Than Iron Man 2

My Own Personal Ringtone

More Uplifting than the Great Potato Recession of the 1840’s

100% Pineapple Wedge Free

Thinking ‘Here Goes Nothing’ Could Be the Start of Everything

First Draft Only Draft

No Bells ‘N Whistles But Shenanigans Galore

Are You Even Listening To Me?

You Don’t Need To Audition To Get In

I Know Nothing About Sri Lanka

Zero Irony

I Don’t Read Novels So I’m Sure As Hell Never Gonna Write One

There’s No School Like Old School

Nestled Deep Within the Foothills of Literary Obscurity

Miscellany to the Next level

Twice As Exciting as a Pre-Fight Safety Demonstration

Seriously? Nah.

No Antman. No Wasp. But spellchecker Galore.

The Silicon Implant of the Literary World

King of Cliches. Emperor of Eiderdowns.

35% Funny – 65% Bad At Maths

Razzamatazz Desperately in Need of Shizzle

Good Different

Come for the view. Stay for the Cliches.

Micro-sleep-free Reading Guaranteed.

A Dedicated Blurter Blurts

Writing Several Notches in Quality above Burping the National Anthem

A Land-Locked Literary Hideaway Aquaman is Never Gonna Visit 

I Wake Up With Scenic Writer’s Shack

Absolutely No Hand-Eye Coordination Needed

You Don’t Need To Audition To Get In

Creativity Spoken Here

Attracting Interest from the Little End of Town

I will leave you finally with a little joke to end the year.

On female whale says to the other female whale – “My New Year’s resolution is to lose 18 000 kilograms.”

Thankyou for the second consecutive year for playing along with the idea that I have anything at all of value to say. It is a funny experiment indeed I will agree.

See you all on the other side, where 2019 promises to pack in as many twists and turns and flood our comfort zones with pepper spray every bit as much as 2018 did.

But always in an interesting way.