Scott's First Post - In a Nutshell

I haven’t consistently written a blog since 2007. I joined a site called ‘Live Journal’ with some friends back in grade 12 and proceeded to chronicle the awkward struggles of my adolescent mind online for all to see. When I look back and try to reread my posts, I find I can never read more than a dozen or so. It gets uncomfortable and I have to stop. I wrote with a special kind of honesty back then – a desperate, soul searching honesty – that reflected the helplessness and confusion that came with trying to figure out who I was at the time.

At that point in my life I was completely incompetent at forming relationships. I had discovered creative writing earlier that year and had already written a number of poems. Most often, the poems were words and phrases that attempted to describe what I was feeling at the time. What blew my mind then – and still does now, really – was how I often only understood what I was feeling after I had written it down. The advent of online journals/blogs was portentous for me. I thought all I had to do was take these chronicled feelings, paste them to a site and relationships would blossom.

Turns out it worked, although the process was often painful.

My posts were often misinterpreted or misunderstood (both outcomes being completely frustrating at the time, but rereading my posts now were absolutely fair and logical). Fortunately for all teenagers, your peers tend to be roughly as incompetent as you are and thus a community of abstract, esoteric, and desperately reflective bloggers were born! In short, some of those classmates who also used the site became – and still are – some of my best friends, and we have all forgiven each other for what we put each other through in those glorious, awkward days of old.

As relationships began to form and I slowly learned how to communicate in person, my blogging became much more readable and, ironically, gradually dwindled away. I suppose history has shown that much of art (not to imply my blogging was art) comes out of times of extreme emotion, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Or perhaps the ending of my blogging coincided with my friends also stopping; I can’t really remember. What is really important to me is this: I don’t remember what prompted me to write this, but one of my final entries – dated July 29^th, 2006 – was “I think I’m going to write a novel”.  I made a couple more posts after that, mostly to keep my account active, but for all intents and purposes that was my final blog post.

I’m going to cover my motivations behind writing a novel in another post. For now, I simply wish to remember my blogging past and celebrate the fact that the goal I set when I was entirely ignorant of the challenge it would pose may soon be accomplished.

If you’re an old friend reading this, thanks for putting up with me on livejournal! I hope this blog is much more sensible, although I would accept just as meaningful.

If you’re a newer friend reading this, welcome. I hope you find meaning and/or entertainment in what it contains.

I would like to begin this new blogging endeavour with a simple, but personally profound statement.

I think I’m going to finish writing a novel.