No. 1 - Aspiring umarell

I did not mean to start writing behind a paywall, I only wanted to run away and never come back.

Safely outside the city of Halifax, I (still) wrote almost exclusively about the city of Halifax. A long-form person by nature, I covered distances and wrote volumes, before I eventually ended up back here where I got my start, being pseudovulnerable on the internet and variably un/comfortable in Halifax. Everything is excruciating, and obviously embarrassing. Here I am, though: online. Open access, once more. 

The first year I made good money writing, I was also tasked with goal-setting. I grew up being told it would be impossible to make any money writing, so I took this to be a serious exercise for the aspiring writer and not a hazing ritual in grad school.

Classically, I am honest when I could have been couth. I said I wanted to learn to write more congruently. (Haha). I assumed academic writing was first and foremost about integrity (Sorry to burst your bubble). But in the Ivory Tower, congruence often proves impractical and/or unsafe. Research as performance. 

Shifting from .doc to .net, I experience relief writing to a readership I can’t and won’t know. It doesn’t matter if you (or anyone) read this. 

In blog, the difference between “you” and you (naked) might be less discernible to some readers than my relatively new-found respect for precise punctuation. I’m worried I won’t sound like I used to. I fear, more than anything, my own inaccessibility and obsolescence. It pleases me to say: I don’t think you should have to read Butler (Sorry to burst your bubble).

Classically, I am honest when I could have been couth.

New goal: make words do things again.