Well, if I'm just gonna write on this blog daily I might as well go for it.
Won't be the first time I've done something like this, but it'll be the first time I've done it on my own site in about ten years. Made my first attempt at a blog in 2014–or in other words about 14 years too late for a blog to be culturally relevant. That was when I first got serious about writing. I'd wanted to write ever since I started my first novel back in third grade, and I'd done some scribbling now and then. But it wasn't till 2014–the year I graduated college–that I got serious about it and actually started writing daily.
And you know how it is, you graduate college and you're like, "My God, what do I do? I always assumed I'd have killed myself by now."
I'm sure that's a universal experience.
At that time it was mostly poetry, although I always had a novel in progress that I never quite got around to finishing. Later on I moved on to short stories–not that I like the short story as a form all that much, but they're quicker to write and you gradually build up a feeling for how a story is constructed.
The poetry was a way to let out the sadness (mostly self-constructed), the romantic yearnings (mostly self-thwarted), and the utter bewilderment at who I was or what I was meant to be (which I think is a feeling that haunts pretty much everyone pretty much all the time). Most of it was crap. But it's all there in the notebooks in my closet, along with the many short stories I've written that aren't worthy of being made into toilet paper.
(Not that I know they're really all that bad. The last time I read any of them was when I wrote them.)
So, armed with my philosophy degree and my love for the delicate arts of poetry and prose, I spent a few years self-employed as a copywriter. Which I utterly despised down to the core of me. If you're not too clear on what a copywriter is, I envy you. Most of the time I wrote blog posts for lawyers, recruiters, and technical schools–which I didn't much enjoy, but it paid the bills and anything's better than having an employer and having to punch the clock five days a week.
(If my employer is reading this: I have every intention of leaving you just as soon as I can.)
But my heart was not in copywriting. I know part of the hustle thing is that you get off on just how much you don't enjoy all the hard work you're doing. And I tried. But at the end of every day I'd be so sick of writing that I wouldn't have it in me to do the kind of writing that really mattered to me. No fiction, no poetry, no self-indulgent blogging.
Around the time COVID started the copywriting business fell apart. I've worked a few different jobs since then, never sticking around anywhere very long. I'm fortunate enough not to have any significant ties or expensive vices, so I have no need and no inclination to stick with any company past the point that going to work no longer feels like an adventure.
Although for the biggest chunk of that post-COVID time I was doing deliveries through DoorDash. Not great money, but (again) anything beats having a supervisor looking over your shoulder.
Throughout this time I'd indulged the majority of my impulse to expressive writing by posting on LinkedIn, of all places. Over a period of five years or so I built a little community on LinkedIn. No, that's too strong a term, I'm too prickly an individual to put up with being part of a "community." But I gradually built up a few connections with people who liked my stories and my poetry and who I didn't absolutely despise.
But eventually my LinkedIn account got deleted–I like to push boundaries with my writing, so one of my more risque posts might have upset somebody.
I don't bear anybody any ill will for this and I hope someday I meet the person responsible in the post-apocalyptic wasteland where there is no law.
(Incidentally, weird things happen when you post exactly the same kind of thing on Facebook that you'd posted for years and years on LinkedIn. Who knew?)
It was about a year and a half ago when the LinkedIn account burned to the last ember. And it really stung to lose that everyday contact with friends who knew me through my writing. It wasn't exactly the kind of success a writer dreams of, but it was a taste of something like it.
And it was a feeling of being known and accepted, maybe even valued. I'm too self-absorbed or too distant to really open up to anyone in real life. It was nice to have a feeling like somebody knew me beyond the facade. Not that I put on a particularly good facade–anytime I'm in public it's probably obvious enough that I'm very angry and fearful and constantly try to keep everyone on earth at a distance.
Maybe. I dunno, maybe I'm good at pretending to be human.
Anyway, I'm going to be posting here for the foreseeable future. All the blogging advice I've ever read says not just to write about whatever you happen to be thinking about on that particular day. So, at least for now, I'm just going to be writing about whatever I happen to be thinking about on that particular day. I'm the type who, if I put together a plan ahead of time, will either a) never finish planning or b) never execute because the fact that I've planned the whole thing out has now made it unbearably boring to me.
At the rate things are going I'm likely to be shouting into the void for a while–so if you're reading this it's nice to see you. Good luck and good hunting, and I promise there are better posts than this one around these parts.
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