It's 23 degrees in the UK right now. My partner is playing a game next to me as I write this and I sit rather slouched on the bed. I have a lukewarm Pepsi. I shouldn't be drinking Pepsi, on account of a recent dentist visit. But I hope the religiosity I've approached brushing my teeth with counteracts this. It probably won't.
I'm currently migrating my blog to neocities. I previously hosted it on Wix (and much longer ago on Wordpress). I'm also attempting to move my custom domain, which isn't working right now so I'll suffice with the neocities domain in the meantime. This is a decision I know lacks a certain professionalism. This is also a mindset I need to curb- this worry about how professional I present myself.
I've got one publication. I'm far from a professional writer yet. And every time I've tried to chase building a presence for myself that is professional, I seem to end up choking, losing momentum, losing drive.
But I've got to have something. The digital era insists on it. I need something to say upfront 'hello, I'm E.S.Wills, I write.'
I'm not particularly good at figuring out how being a writer on social media works. I'm not a stranger to social media itself, but I can't say the same about writing communities on social media. They're elusive to me. But websites feel...they have more ownership. It's definably more of a space for you, whereas social media is everybody's soapbox. Plus word limits- the bane for any writer that exceeds a 100-word limit (most, if not all).
I've always been more fond of the idea of keeping a writing website, as opposed to a primary social media precense. And I was happy to use website builders...
But I'd go into the Wix editor. I'd be greeted to seemingly hundreds of things that told me I should 'write' my blog-post with AI. Hell, even now I write this into VSCode, which also has AI intergrations (which, so far, are easy to close).
AI is deeply demoralising as a new writer. The proponents of it insist that I should simply not do my craft. Use my writing skill, instead, for a single line of prompt. The AI is better than me, trained of the stolen data of thousands of other artists and creatives. There's no need to think. They will shove this down my throat with the hopes that it kills me.
Unfortunately, I quite like writing, and I quite like thinking. Even if I'm not very good at those things sometimes. I can't be killed, because I refuse to swallow the slop.
It was enough frustration with Wix's insistent AI promotion that I came to learn about the indie web. I was too young to have personally experienced the Geocities era, but once I learnt about Neocities I was just hooked. Hooked enough that with a few lessons in FreeCodeCamp, I had the basic tools to make a website (and the know-how to research if I did stumble on an issue).
Granted, this website isn't flashy. That's kind of the point.
I'm someone with a chronic problem: committment issues. Specifically to my creative projects. I'll be charmed by an idea, pour so much energy into that first draft and then not want to return to it. Like a fear of looking in the mirror, noticing the flaws reflected back at yourself and dreading the time it would take to iron them out. When I was early into designing my neocities website, I wondered a lot about how the website should look. I thought about going for a more macarbe look, I thought about sourcing art from the public domain (I'm a big fan of Monet's Waterlillies). I thought a lot about what my image should be.
Then I thought it simply had to be, so I went for a monochromatic colour scheme. Just so it existed. I could polish it later, if it needed it.
I need some sort of kick up the arse to truly develop a discipline as a writer. I think my problem has been developing discipline. I know the tools, techniques and such- but it's building discipline I struggle with.
This website, hopefully, can be a discipline practice. How exactly I haven't figured out, but at the very least a single place where I can put my fingers to the keyboard and throw stuff out there.