(Read up on what #Richards2016 is all about here.)

Guys, I give up. It’s all over. I’ve failed and I’ve let you down and I’ve let myself down and I’m sorry I guess. As much as it pains me to type this, #Richards2016 is no more.

Why? Well, here’s just a couple of the main reasons:

  • Lack of interest

    It turns out that not many people care about my antics! My blog views were pretty low, like single-digits sometimes, and it’s just not worth my effort to try to appeal to such a small audience.
    Also, absolutely no interest from any publishers whatsoever. However, there are an infinite number of non-books coming out from every ‘lifestyle blogger’ ever right now, so I’d imagine they’re busy with those instead. Granted, I never actually approached any publishers, but I was kinda hoping this thing would blow up and they’d come to me. (Like, did Mr Get In The Sea Man pitch his Twitter account to publishers? How exactly did that work?).

  • Lack of effort, on my part

    Committing to doing something every day, no matter how small, is a bigger challenge than it sounds. If you’ve ever tried to do one of those ‘take a picture of yourself every day for a year’ challenges, then you’ll know just what I mean. It sounds like the easiest thing ever, but you’ve got to remember to do it, actually have the time to do it, and commit to it no matter what comes up in your life.

    So saying I’d do the day every day was becoming a mental strain. I’d often forget to do it on the day until really late in the evening, and my post quality suffered as a result. I was just drawing pictures, or taking a photo of me doing something, and that’s not what this life project was meant to be about. There were even times when I’d forget entirely and have to retrospectively retcon my day into something related, desperately picking one of the days that fit the best.

  • Life happens

    The project started falling apart when I took a short trip in April for a stag do. When you’re on a holiday, of any kind, you don’t really want to be thinking about work – and work is essentially what this project was becoming. And, especially with the kind of trip I was on, you’re not always fully in control of what you’re up to. So during this trips, I had to put the project on hold, thereby compromising my fundamental promise to do the day, every day.

    Since then I’ve been to New York twice, Stockholm once, like three weddings, and various other breaks, visits, and diversions. I even moved house, which is pretty much the most time-consuming thing you can do, and has been my focus for around a solid month.

  • Fatigue

    Last, but not least, I’d say that I simply grew tired of the project. It wasn’t fun anymore. So many of the days were just me eating a cake, or drawing an animal. I swear a couple of days got repeated too. I resorted to simply paying money on some charity days – which of course isn’t a bad thing in itself – but it was essentially just me paying to not have to do anything more substantial. Plus it was starting to add up.

So yeah, I’m done. It’s over. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I’d say I managed to last six months, but I really haven’t been doing anything for a good month now. Sorry.

Not to end on a downer, here’s some highlights!

I submitted a silly Freedom of Information request about books and now I feel bad

Relive the excitement yourself with the #Richards2016 hashtag on twitter dot com.

Cheers,

cookywook