Almost April - Month in Writing #001

I haven't had a blog like this since I was 13 or less - not one that I wrote on and expected people to actually read what I have to say, at least. Even now it feels a little self-aggrandizing to sit here and write and assume any or many will continue past this sentence in earnest. I don't know if that's me keeping my ego hashtag humble, or if I'm gaslighting myself, or something in between.

But people talk every day as if what they have to say is important, and they say a hell of a lot stupider sh*t than I do, so if I want to indulge myself and document my decade plus long journey of writing... why not, Zoidberg?

(That's my pep talk to myself, because even now I'm like, "Stop talking." It's funny, because while I feel like I've found my voice with writing characters, using my voice on a platform I've made for myself to write as me feels stiff. There's some astrology on that.)

And I guess that's kind of how I wound up here. I got a lot of motivation to work seriously on a website while diving into #RevPit on BlueSky. I've had it for a few years thanks to a very kind and lovely friend who knows way more about these things than I do said I should have one. They helped kick off the initial set up, but I always felt like I didn't have anything substantive to talk about or share that was unique/specific/helpful enough for anyone to care about, so I never did much of anything with it. The internet is full of people who have done nothing at all talking like they're the experts, or people who could do it, of course, if they only had the time.

Everyone can do it, so what you do isn't that special. But please, do more of it for me, faster, in the exact way that I want, specific to me, so I can enjoy it and indulge.

Ah, yes. Fandom and associated activities branded this into my brain, but little did they know, they couldn't hurt me. No, no, friends - I want to be a published author, and the reality is the publishing realm is worlds more critical (although a couple of flames at 13 or 14 did do a great job at toughening up the adult skin I grew into).

But what's the chicken and egg? Do people devalue creative work because we don't talk about the hard realities enough? Or do we not talk about the hard realities enough because people devalue what we do? it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If social media is a curated experience, we also curate our social media - we look at authors who have already "made it" or present as having done so, and we follow along with those trying to make it until/if/or when we decide they aren't making progress in the "right way". The "right way" is what our friends, co-workers, cousins, and friends of friends imagine what a writer's/author's path to look like rather than the reality, which is often hard work (like, hours of agonizing, plotting, rewriting, rephrasing, retweaking, recasting, rewinding) with little and sometimes no reward.

(Fandom never understood this bitey little lesson, either. And I didn't know how to gently say this without getting my head bitten off, and after a while, I stopped saying anything at all.)

I think a lot of us get caught up in trying to portray the ideal - either because we're manifesting or we don't want to get swept up in the negativity that's way too easy to sink into when we don't progress in the way we'd hope to, even when we know the reality. But maybe if we had more people talking honestly about the parts that suck and the parts that are, honestly, wildly innocuous, it might give people a better sense of what the journey really looks like, whether it comes to an end or not. And maybe it'll give some people pause before saying they could write a book, too, if they only had time, when they see people who don't making the time.

(It won't, really, and that's okay.)

So, I guess that's where I am now - I'm still not sure I have a lot of value to bring to the converstion, but after 30-some years, maybe I'm trying to just... say something anyway, whether or not it makes a difference. My plan is to write a blog a month , showing the good, the fine, the bad, the boring in order to document it all for myself, if no one else, and remind myself of the hard work I've put in even when it feels hard to keep going. I'll talk about stories I'm working on, thoughts I'm having, and, hopefully, work on finding my voice for me, myself, and I.

I once told people, "If you build it, they will come." If you made it this far, thank you for coming, and I hope you'll stick around for next time.

Always,

Emmie

P.S. Nothing in this is inclusive of every scenario, ever. That's another reason I usually don't say anything, because I don't like to give incomplete arguments (that's on my academic training). But, it's also another thing we're working on, because otherwise we'll say nothing at all. You can consider this a rough draft space of wild thoughts.