In the lounge is the largest Christmas tree I’ve ever shared a house with. The walls slope up to the second floor in the lounge, leaving an impressively high ceiling, and more space for something extravagant.
Self-expression is kind of tough these days.
It’s not fear, exactly - I have been writing a blog for about ten years, and while there was a period when people would kill conversations with “oh, yeah, I read that on your blog”, the move away from daily life updates and the fact that every American misspells my last name has meant that this space, implausible as the title might suggest, has become fairly private. Anything that might be more scandalous or sensitive tends to go on Twitter, which is safe from prying eyes.
Neither is it lack of emotion, or ideas - I have plenty of both. I think it’s more just a renewed consideration of what I want to put into the world. There are plenty of online spaces devoted to complaining. A lot of them are needlessly hyperbolic, or upsetting, or lacking anything resembling nuance. Some avoid all of that, and some are hyperbolic and upsetting because the subject matter justifies that kind of response. This world is, at times, a harsh and cruel place, and there is value in protesting and getting angry. There was a time that I’d try and engage with the methods that some people employ - to wryly comment on the way that some people live their lives as one long walking wound, indiscriminately bleeding on anyone and everyone with little resembling intent and everything resembling instinct - but I don’t want to do that anymore. I recognize my limits. Some people need to scream to stop from imploding.
I wrote something about a female author back in November - you know, the one who tracked down a negative reviewer. You won’t find it anymore. I didn’t receive any negative feedback for it, and I still stand by the opinions I expressed in it, but the fact that I spent an hour of my time writing about one individual whose prominence in my life came solely from Guardian articles and reactions to Guardian articles reflects on me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. There’s a mental tone it produces that feels dissonant, and noisy, and hard to harmonize. I’ve been meditating recently. That kind of writing just doesn’t feel like it validates anything anymore. It’s not venting if the feeling is still there afterwards.
I guess it comes down to what I want to contribute to culture. I want people to read my stories. There’s a short story I’m writing at the moment that will hopefully make it into an anthology that’s coming out next year. In it, there’s a soldier working in a nuclear base who’s trying to adapt to the fact that the people and environment around them keep changing - sometimes in ways that are nearly impossible to discern, and sometimes in ways that are really quite dramatic. This serves as inspiration to some extent, as does this. I think I have an interesting conceit; I just need to make it work.
There’s my novel, too, and a couple of other fringe ideas - I’m still thinking about writing science fiction erotica under a pseudonym, though who knows - and while motivation is sometimes hard to muster, it is at least something. It’s giving something to the world that isn’t purely composed of a reaction to something else.
So I’ll still use this as a log for the things I’ve been consuming, and to check in every now and then, and even to express myself - but in a way that’s more considered, and properly reflects who I want to be.
More soon.