What is This?!

This is weird. This isn’t how I planned, nor envisioned starting this endeavor.

But, that’s life right? So now in the middle of a pandemic I’m going to just plunge in.

I’m starting small as this will be a work in progress. There will be bumps. I’m not going to be perfect. Things will change and evolve as I go. I hope you’ll be along for the ride.

So. What is this? Good question.

First, thing’s first. I have no clue what I’m doing here. I mean, I know a tiny bit. I know I’ve always enjoyed writing. But, running a blog? Daresay I, a website?! 😬

The roots of this go all the way back to my college days. I was obsessed with a book of poetry I found when visiting New York City. The book and it’s impact on my life will be the topic of a future entry. But, I was so obsessed with one poet, Bob Holman, that I scoured the Internet to try and contact him.

I had questions.

How do I get published? Where do I begin? What’s the process of submitting? What was his story?

And after a quick search query from whatever existed before Google, I found him.

There it was an email address. His email address. Holy. Shit. WHAT?! It was like that moment in “High Fidelity” where Rob is trying to find contact information for that one girl he dated who was out of his league and finds her in the phone book.

That reaction: “SHE’S IN THE PHONEBOOK!” That was my reaction. How could his email just be here for anyone to find?

And I did it, I emailed him. I can’t remember how long it took for him to respond, but he did.

I looked at my email in disbelief. There it was. An email response from someone I considered a literature hero.

It was a brief response. I can’t remember everything he wrote, but he told me to “Start a ‘zine!”

What. How the fuck is a lowly college student just going to start a self-published ‘zine? How am I going to do that? The task seemed impossible. And honestly, I did not have the imagination at the time to figure out a way to make that happen.

But the thought always stayed with me, especially as I would go to comic book conventions and see creators who would write, draw and very obviously put their books out on their table with the help of places like Staples or some other mass printer place. Messy staples, photo copier quality pictures, but they were doing it. Crude copies. But, they were carving out a niche for their creative endeavors in a medium they loved.

If they could do it, why couldn’t I? Another good question. And those answers, I’ll be delving into future entries as almost all of it revolves around battles with anxiety.

And now that leads me to here, to today, whenever you’re reading this. I recently read another blog entry from a writer I’ve never read but heard about from a former work colleague. That blog entry from Chuck Wendig shook me. Shook me free of anxieties of writing for myself. This is my voice. This is me writing for me, writing for you.

Because if I am ever going to get better at this, I gotta get practicing. On the regular. And that’s this.

I have been planning for this since I sent that email to Bob Holman all those years ago. Everything happens in time. And here I am. Writing. For me for once. No editors to interfere. I am completely myself in this space. My space.

(Pun 💯 intended).

That was a lot of words. Hold on while I stretch and nestle into this cozy digital-space I’m carving out for myself.

So why wait so long to start something like this? Writing is hard. It’s lonely and anxiety inducing when you’re left alone with yourself. At least for me it is.

But, life’s journey has led me to grasp with my issues with anxiety and that has helped me to be more comfortable with the idea of putting my writing out there.

I have to practice. I have to work on this more and more and more. And the hope here is,the energy I put into this will help me find the motivation and inspiration to work on the 1 million other things that have been dancing around in my head since I was a kid. Since I was BillyBen (tease for my next entry 😉).

No more distractions. No more avoiding. I’m going to make writing a priority. It’s time.

So what is this going to be? Who knows. I have swayed back and forth between making this blog one focus or another:

Politically Relevant?
Creative Endeavor?
Independent journalism?
Pop Culture Analysis?
Heck even sports?

But, why not just whatever I want to write in the moment? So it’s just going to be a little bit of everything.

OR maybe I just wanted an excuse to write super long Facebook posts without Facebook being involved.

I have hopes that this will be an insightful place. A place to build a community. A place to laugh, learn and grow as a person and as people.

I’m writing to point out the things I’ve learned over a lifetime as much as I am writing to learn more about the world and people around me. I’m writing for myself. For you. And all of us. Learning and growing are going to be big themes around here.

Leave a comment. Get in touch with me. Send me an email. Want your own safe space to try a writing project and test the waters of writing? Tired of social media? Talk to me. I bought this webspace to be a place of openness, learning and love.

Questions and all view points are welcome here. Hate will not be tolerated.

With all that said, this is going to be a weird, funny, awkward, insightful and exciting journey. I think.

Can’t wait to see where this goes.

See ya next week!