Nearly five and a half years ago the original Neon Winter launched. There was no domain – an ugly geocities address the only access point. It wasn’t my first web presence, but it was the first site I had all to myself – an outpouring of works and words and self. Then, as now, it seemed a good idea to keep myself occupied – and I am wary of the unsettling symmetry – but more than that it was a garden of sorts for things that would not grow away from the light. Five and a half years on and the prolific outpouring of character and place has slowed almost to a halt, yet the seeds still come as thick and fast as ever. Many things are needed for growth – fertile soil is one of them, and this site fills that purpose. We shall see if I can find the others in time.

This blog (I use the word in full awareness of its horrid and unapologetic abruptness – I know many who despise it, but I must admit I feel a sympathy. Our biological evolution may have tracked to a crawl long ago yet our evolution itself has evolved into something new, and our language keeps up as best it can.) will not be the place for these horticultural experiments in creativity, though I may use this space to talk about the process itself. The blog I envisage as a place to expound on the many things I no doubt have to say about things themselves.

I will apologise now, and indeed only this once, about what may seem like pretentiousness, absent-mindedness or insanity. I do enjoy playing with words and though I am, I am told, perfectly capable of throwing them together in normal comprehensible patterns known to many as phrases, sentences or paragraphs, I am moved more to throw them together in ways that seem pleasing or amusing to me. There will be obscure words dredged from dictionaries esoteric; there will be seemingly unrelated and meandering detours; and there will be phrases started with conjunctions.

Because I can.