Writerly Reset 2022
Possibly my favorite corner in my apartment.
Hey there. Thank you for stopping by!
So, back in June I was definitely feeling the need to give my writerly life a reboot of some kind. Including, like, actually doing more writing. But also, give this site another much needed overhaul.
I launched the last version of the site in October 2017, not long after I moved to Nashville. Less than a year later I was back in Chicago, this time on my own. And I dove back into things, writing, doing storytelling events, etc.
Then Covid hit, and well that blew things up. I journaled a lot and spewed words sometimes. But not much dedicated crafting time other than sporadic bursts. The show I was going to do in April 2020 moved online. But I bailed. I wasn’t feeling the whole online storytelling event thing and I knew the piece I wanted to share needed work. Which I didn’t have the bandwidth to do. I finally did return to the mic in October 2021 when Story Sessions launched their open mic night. It felt good to be back!
I finally wrote and published something back in January thanks to MarchXness.They published my essay Weights & Pulleys as part of the extracurricular essay series leading up this year’s tournament of song essays. Then in February, I returned to Is This a Thing? and wrote a new piece about why I just can’t quit Saturday Night Live.
Along the way, I kept up the old site (which began as a Wordpress.com blog in 2008), adding freelance and nonprofit sections as I job hunted beyond the restaurant bizz. But then there wasn’t much to add, and I wasn’t feeling the site anymore. A little Old Life I guess. It felt clunky and messy and just too much. Plus I did neglect the back end of things. So I jumped ship to Squarespace and here we are. Refreshed and Reorganized and at least a little simpler (I am me after all). I also gutted this blog and have only copied over some of the archives (and will add more as I go along; it’s a little tedious). News became old and the info has been absorbed into other pages and links. Some felt too precious and maybe also a little cringe.
It’s also given me a chance to reconnect with my writing (and performance) and myself, the stories that are usually made out of the real life. It’s been good re-reading and re-listening. Clicking old links that still go somewhere and seeing which ones don’t. Now that I’ve created a space I feel good about returning to, I hope it serves as a good place for friends and fans and readers and colleagues to turn to. There’s still some work to do, little fixes and updates and whatnot. And of course hopefully more exciting writing and performance and other goodies to add.
I’ll see how I continue to use this blog. I started a Substack newsletter a while back (which also needs a reboot!) so maybe they’ll work hand in hand.
And now that this work is more or less done and on its way, I can move on with the writing and other good stuff. Looking forward to it!