Where have I been?
No, I didn’t transition. I’ve just been out being an adult and living a pretty unexamined life, Tumblr. I stopped writing there when it felt like the kids took over; I didn’t want to be that one weird middle-aged Dad amongst a sea of Gen Z kids tumbling Naruto memes.
Examining one’s own life can get trying. It too often ends up being nothing but navel-gazing self-pity or self-hatred or both, and I really don’t need to do more of either. Self-pity is just bad, it’s a trait I’ve realized over time that I deeply dislike in others, even including family members. Self-hatred is something I’m way too good at, like most lifelong depressives.
There is a case to be made for self-examination in the spirit of self-improvement. While I loathe the touchy-feely granola side of that pursuit to the point where I once created a moderately successful Twitter account lampooning the self-improvement industry (see above), I am definitely into my own take on self-improvement. I’ve come to see that involves more writing and reflection.
So, more writing — here, even though I paid for a pretty nifty domain at huff.blog — in the spirit of recording impressions and insights, new learning, and new revelations. And whatever the hell else comes up.
But I already write for a living, you say. And I do, but that writing has become a bit like a reflex. It’s done in the service of a job and it isn’t truly my voice. I don’t really get blocked when it comes to the writing I do for work — I might have trouble getting revved up to go sometimes, but I always work something out. I often do feel blocked the moment I begin to work on something just because I want to. If you could see my Medium drafts page, you’d see that means I get a few paragraphs in then just give up.
This is a conundrum I’m determined to deal with. It means not always being comfortable with what I write, with where it goes. Honestly, that’s why I posted the silly FaceApp image of me as me and me as a woman above; I don’t have gender dysphoria, I’m happy being the dude I am, but I’ve always felt a twinge of discomfort with posting images like that, hence my making a joke out of it. I do think it’s funny that basically taking my features and bone structure and adding on all the things an app’s AI thinks will make me look like a woman ends up creating an objectively attractive image — “Girl Steve” is way prettier than Actual Steve — but there’s this old cavemanlike masculine self that begins to try and push forward in order to prove I’m still manly as fuck.
I’m comfortable with my masculinity and guy stuff in general and I recognize that feeling of discomfort is from old insecurities rooted in a childhood spent in a blue-collar southern family. Extreme male “macho” behavior was highly prized, down to the ridiculous “FEATS OF STRENGTH” level. So I post a pic like that or similar past images on my Instagram account as a way of pushing myself. A way of getting over myself.
Here’s the other thing about writing through discomfort —over time I almost forgot that it’s why I’m a professional writer now.
When I created my first crime blog in 2004, it was from a conscious decision made to A: write about a subject I’d always found fascinating and perhaps had a knack for understanding, and B: write about something I was uncomfortable admitting I was into.
Prior to 2004, I felt weird when I stepped into the true crime aisle at Barnes & Noble. I worried anyone who saw me there would think I was a creep or psycho, and not simply into trying to wrap my head around some of humanity’s most bizarre, aberrant behaviors. I’d leave the moment another person entered the aisle as if I’d been caught looking at weird porn.
This was years before the current podcast and basic cable TV-fueled true crime boom. For a time, it felt like a dying genre. My original attitude was downright rebellious. It was, “Here, guess what? I am fascinated by this subject and I don’t care who knows and it doesn’t mean I’m some psycho ready to murder people in their sleep, either.”
It felt good to push myself that way and damned if it didn’t end up being easily one of the most successful strategies I’ve ever tried for anything.
I realized I had to write this and do something with this purposefully vaguely-named Medium site (“Stuff” can be anything!) while I was dithering about whether to do the writing I want to do at Substack (I have like three different Substack addresses I’m sitting on) or here.
I was worried about whether I could make money off it. Then this insistent voice in my head — which I’ve come to conclude is not my craziest self, but perhaps the opposite — said that sometimes that shit doesn’t matter. What matters is saying what you want to say. To put it in a corny-ass way: Speak your truth.
So I figured when it comes to writing in a space I’ve set aside just for work I want to do as opposed to work I pitch and then sell, paywalls and subscriptions aren’t the most important part. The most important part is that I am honest about my obsessions, about who I am, and that I get that shit out of my system.
Don’t get me wrong — I’ve been doing this writing (and editing) thing too long now to ever say money doesn’t matter. I’m never going to tell you I don’t want money for my work, that’s stupid.
But I am going to admit there is sometimes work you’ve just got to do, no matter what, in order to do it. For you. It’s been way too long since I went there.
I’m using this space and I’m not putting anything behind a paywall or asking for paid subscriptions.* Just putting it out there. It might be anything, and I do not have any hopes for it other than feeling a bit of relief at not keeping some things to myself.
So. Let’s go.
*My mercenary side will not reject either of those options always and forever. Just saying they won’t be my default when it comes to work I’ve concluded I want to do just to do it.
