the first

It’s a difficult time to decide to write and publish online. There are so many reasons not to bother at all. Maybe you feel like you really want to write because you’re supposed to write because it’s what you’ve always done, but the working world (ugh) will never support the kind you want to do, and your holy grail of a novel remains, true to the metaphor you have just used, almost entirely theoretical.

But all the same you want, if you do this thing, to resist that pressure to self-commodify (but wouldn’t it be nice to make a living from it?), or are repulsed by the idea that all human creative endeavour is currently being consumed by plagiarism technology, by those who don’t value it in the slightest, and no words are safe.

And maybe that golden era of blogging you remember from twenty years ago was never really so golden anyway? Didn’t you have almost no readers? And then blogs died, and so did that comfy illusion of personal space, and we all know what replaced it, and you felt the need to cede ground to other voices more ‘important’ than yours—smarter, funnier, more political. And then, eventually, you disappeared entirely, because there seemed no better option than to go into hiding, or, you told yourself, to go live in the real world (liar).

So what’s the point?

I guess in the end, despite all our fears, any of us who write and miss how it felt to share it with others have to believe it still matters. It’s still worth it. It matters now for the same reason it mattered then: it’s a human creative need. It's good to try to put things into words, and to share the fruits of our labour. Even when it’s not our best and we’re just letting it flow (or sit heavy, as here, like a slab of dung).

When we’ve got no other kind of courage, this will have to do.

Only one rule for now:

(all rules can be broken)

Keep going.