So today marks one month since I started my one-month blog challenge. I managed to only miss two days, minus a bit of backdating posts, but for the past week or so I’ve managed to make writing a habit; one of the last things I do before I turn off the screen for the day and wind down with some reading. We really didn’t have a goal going into this experiment, if you will, but wanted to treat it more as an exercise to see what happens. Part of me is a bit disappointed that there’s bit virtually no traffic to the site, but that was never the goal in the first place. All of the content has been written in a single session, with no review or editing afterward. Of course, that limits the quality and length of what I can write, I think around a thousand words or so in an hour. I have been known to write longer pieces for certain projects, but this has been more about getting into the habit and developing a voice, or coming up with various ideas to allow time for my mind to figure out what it wants.
I’ve been struggling with the question of pseudo-anonymity, identity and privacy here. There are enough people that I’ve met IRL that know who daHIFI is. I have taken steps in the past to obscure things by removing my real name from profiles where they could be found. But since I am no longer under the public eye, so to speak, I think it’s safe for me to be honest about things without having to worry. Part of me does value the fact that I have a bit of privacy here, that I’m putting things out into the world for others to see, but that I’m not advertising it to people within my family or networks.
On the other hand, I think some of the seeds of things I am working on here have potential for further work elsewhere. I want to continue to write daily, but likely will either have to devote more time than the 30-60 minutes a day that I do now, or will have to reduce the published output to allow more time to develop something. I just don’t know what that something is yet. In the past I’ve had random pieces pop the search engines and go crazy, so you never know what will work.
For now I’ll just keep writing for an audience of one. This is a place for me to write some of the things I’ve wanted to say for a long time, to deal with stuff that I’ve never wanted to admit, either to myself or to others. Again, being able to say things without worrying who’s reading it is liberating in it’s own sense, but being limited to anonymity isn’t really as comfortable either. I haven’t figured out a way to maintain the balancing act yet, hell, I haven’t even put out the high-wire yet. In a way, I’ve always struggled at figuring out what what I want.
I know that maintaining control of the medium is important, that’s why I’ve always felt more comfortable maintaining my own site than trusting a third party with it. Recent discussions about Tumblr’s great porn purge is another example of why this is important. I like Medium as a publishing platform, but conflating this identity with my normie one there, crossposting and maintaining separate publications just seems like the wrong way to go.
Perhaps part of the reason I’ve been loathe to ‘promote’ this space is that I’m disappointed with the archives, or with the lapses over the years. Perhaps I’m afraid of it being ignored, and so by making sure that it’s ignored I can inoculate myself against any feelings of rejection. Who knows. Maybe there are things that I haven’t said yet that I’m not ready to write — there are — and that I’m giving myself space to grow comfortable with the idea of getting that out in the open.
So for now, we’ll do as we have with the other habits that we’ve picked up lately, and extend it out further. Maybe I can find a way to integrate this private life with my public one. Maybe they’ll stay separate and I’ll just have to accept that. Maybe no one will read these words but me and the search engine spiders. Maybe one day I’ll write a post that no one else has and that finds an audience, guiding me where to go next.
For now, I’ll just keep following my own voice, and will keep writing.