Karl T.

I've had this account since the beginning of May, and I've dithered about what to put here, whether to crosspost, etc. I'm sure many folks have the New Notebook Problem -- what do I put on that first pristine page? Does it have to be perfect? What foot do I want to start on? and so forth.

I'm no closer to an answer to that than I was two and a half months ago. But I will announce an intention: Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, 500 words. Even if it's crap. And it will be crap, at least at first. I'm out of the habit of this writing thing, and it's going to be painful to get back in. But better to go through a few weeks of wince-worthy morning-page stuff than to go another year feeling like I haven't done any creative writing at all.

Things that have been on my mind lately:

• Social justice in fandom: anti-racism, feminism/anti-sexism, and intersecionality among issues of gender performance, gender identity, self-labelling of sexual orientation/preference (gay, queer, lesbian, vanilla, pansexual, otherly-kinked), race, and peer-group identification (geek, fan, fannish geek, queer geek, nerd, slan).


• The balance between being a welcoming, inclusive community and keeping members of the community safe. How do we decide when it's more important to tell our stories to each other with all the pain and blood and viscera intact and when it's more important to not trigger one another? How do we develop a set of spaces where both are valued, and the two needs don't trample on one another? How does privilege interact with who gets to tell which stories, and who gets accused of insensitivity to others?


• I've been on the fringes of many communities for a long time now: SF/F fandom, especially as expressed by the BayCon staff/community, Buffista-dom and b.org, various corners of the Free Software community, Dreamwidth. What has kept me from participating in those communities more fully? How much of that is simply Impostor Syndrome and how much is a desire for drama-avoidance, an almost Buddhist belief that the more I invest in (get attached to) a community, the more heartache (suffering) it will bring me?


• How can I gently begin to re-structure my life so that I spend less time being exhausted and more time feeling like I'm doing something meaningful, where 'meaningful' in this context means 'increasing the amount of love and well-being in the lives of people around me'?


• How can I maintain a balance between remaining informed about the social/political issues that are important to my life, my family, and my neighbours and not succumb to primal despair about how utterly and obviously broken our current political system is? How do I find people who can help me make sense of this constant stream of completely ineffective outrage? And how do I keep it from smothering every bit of pride I ever had in this brilliantly deranged democratic experiment I call a home country?

Close enough to 500 words for me. Any and all comments welcome.