I guess this is the part where I start blogging again.

Here we are, folks. I’m officially slinging words on the internet again, but at least this time it isn’t about fandom.

For those of you who’ve been around since the early days (yes, I’m talking Tumblr era), you probably remember a far different version of me. I won’t drop my old username here (let’s be real - that’s a Pandora’s box we don’t need to open), but if you know, you know. I guess I’m doing it again, just different this time.

Self publishing is a journey, they said. You can do it, they said.

And don’t get me wrong - it is, and I can. But this is weird as hell. Here I am, feeling forced to post a blog after a self-imposed exile from social media. It’s like trying to remember how to ride a bike, but it turns out that everyone’s watching and you never learned how to ride a bike in the first place.

Let me backtrack a bit here. I say “I’m feeling forced” but perhaps forced isn’t the right word. Or perhaps it is. It's a frustrating realization that crafting your story isn’t the hard part - and that’s hard enough to slap the taste off your lips. You’ve got to market yourself, build a platform, post on social media, write blogs (ahem), and basically shout into the void until someone shouts back. It’s enough to make me barf, if I’m honest, but you can’t just write something and hope it slides itself across people’s eyeballs. You’ve got to find those eyeballs before you can even get them to glance your way.

It’s ironic to craft prose in an era that is so attention driven, where hashtags and algorithms feel just as important as the prose. While I’m sitting here doing all the building, the marketing, the posting, part of me is whispering, “Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be about the characters? The series? The craft?” Some days, this all feels like a circle of digital hoops to jump through.

There’s something surreal about shifting from years of quietly just writing to actually putting it out into the world. The self-publishing route is like deciding to be your own boss, but your boss is kind of a douchebag who makes you do everything and never says thanks, only yells that you’re not making enough progress. Marketing? That’s you. Cover design? You. Formatting? Guess who. And then there’s writing a blog after swearing off the social medias for years - because, oh yeah, I’m here now, doing this.

This journey is about sharing a part of myself to a society that consumes books and people and TikTok trends like they’re fast food and fast fashion - while simultaneously accepting that I too consume just as hungrily, just as wastefully. It’s learning to embrace the awkward, messy parts of creativity, while still chasing something real, something meaningful. There’s a weird vulnerability in this whole thing, like standing at the edge of a cliff, ready to shout my truth to whoever’s listening, while hoping no one throws tomatoes at me.

All while going through a divorce. And leaving the healthcare field. And quitting vaping (five days free, cold-turkey, as we speak). For those OGs who’s managed to keep track of me after all this time - pick your jaw up off the floor.

I have no idea where this is going to go, but if you’ve been here long enough, you already know it’s going to get weird.