Reboot

2017 was a strange year for me. I started the year in retreat from my goal of writing every day and I don't think I really found my feet again. Since I began this part of my life in 2015, my posts here have acted as my monologue, my stage directions, and at times as my Greek chorus. I set out realising that the paths laid down by others weren't working for me, and resolved to make my own. I spent the last few years on a quest for meaning, and storytelling is a way to pull meaning from the chaos of real life. I deeply regret having stopped.

I had a lot of unconsummated plans in the last year. I began the Conventional Wisdom Project which, appropriately enough, ended on Better Late Than Never, which I never finished. I started looking for ways to commercialise my creative output, which resulted in some success, but mostly I floundered on that front. I began a residency with the intention of producing an exhibition at the end, but I had an unforeseen family health crisis that ate the end of the year when it would have happened.

I did manage a few projects I was particularly happy with, Automata by Example and Cardiograph, but all told I would call my creative output for the year pretty lacking. Instead, it was really a year for introspection. I realised that I need to take the commercial side of my work much more seriously, that I need to make a concerted effort to define and promote myself and what I'm doing, and that my main letdowns have been lack of execution and lack of ambition. I realised that I can't achieve extraordinary goals by ordinary means, and that pride, humility, restraint, reasonableness and moderation are all ways of being ordinary.

So my aim is for this to be a year where I aim higher, push harder, and make more noise while I'm doing it. That starts, as is tradition, with this site. I'm going to spend some time writing about who I am, what I do, what I want and what I have to offer.

Most importantly, I'm going back to writing every day. I may need to change the way I write to make it work, but I can tell now that this means more to me than just a creative outlet; it's me telling the story that I'm living. Or maybe vice versa.