New, and not at all

Starting a blog feels like a very odd thing to do in 2023.

It’s not like starting a new journal, where you have a cover to open and a fresh blank page to fill with words. The site of the starting has to be marked out in pixels, and they’re far more slippery and ephemeral than paper.

Nor is it like the start of a new story, with a scene to set, and introductions to make. I’m forty years old, have been living parts of my life online for decades, and this is very much picking up in medias res.

This feels awkward. Belated. Almost untethered to what’s preceded it.

Like most nerds my age, I had a LiveJournal back in the ‘oughts. I wrote so much there, and participated in crafty groups, fandom communities, and other interest based circles. Then there was microblogging, which quickly superseded longer form writing and had me twittering about all the little thoughts and ideas that flitted through my head on a day to day basis. Blogging as a practise isn’t new to me, but this little space is new. It’s my own, and that feels good.

I think what makes this space most different is that I have different expectations of it, and different goals for it. I want to make it comfortable. I'd like an online space to ‘think out loud’ that doesn’t come with the relentless mental and emotional labour involved in being on social media platforms. That’s not something that exists out in the world - I have to create it for myself.

I want this to simply be a journal. A commonplace book. A little repository for all the little fragments of what I’m thinking and making. Hopefully over time it will turn into a meandering little narrative that maps all the creative pathways I decide to follow my nose down, and maybe they’ll be places where other creative folks will want to venture too.

We’ll see.

But for now, this is a beginning, and a continuation, and a little ‘hello again, internet,’ and I’m sending it out into the world.

I hope it finds you well.