It’s very weird to realize I’ve been blogging, in some shape or form, over half my life. I guess it started with MySpace, right? At least for me. I just missed out on LiveJournal, but I imagine something like that would’ve been my bread and butter back then, and also right now, too, if we’re being honest—and we are being honest, right? This is a truth blog, after all. Not a lie blog. Except for all of the times I plan on lying to you in the near and distant future, but let’s not worry about things that haven’t happened yet, okay?
So then, yeah, it started with MySpace. I must’ve been been 11 or 12. The only time I’ve ever been semi-talented as a coder (do not ask how long it took me to figure out how to re-design the WordPress blog you are currently reading). I don’t remember if it was called a blog on MySpace. Maybe just a journal? Around this same time, we all slept in the living room, and my bed was just a blanket on the floor, usually curled around a giant kerosene tank to keep the house warm, so I think it’s safe to say I have a little bit of undiagnosed brain damage that has impacted my memory. So maybe it was called a blog or maybe it was called a journal or maybe it was called something else entirely. It does not matter. I just remember I used it a lot. Mostly for fiction. I was already writing stories. I don’t know when that bad habit started. By then I had certainly decided I was hot shit, and ready to share my work with the world. Of course it was all terrible. The same is true for any age: the work is always terrible when you make the mistake of looking back.
What does surprise me, however, is remembering that people actually read the stuff I posted? Like, strangers on the internet that I’d somehow connected with on MySpace (probably due to some shared interest in punk music, gore videos, or generic Hot Topic culture). They would comment and engage, and I’d do the same for their awful blogs. We were all invested in each other. It’s important to remember the internet was once cool.
I didn’t start up my first WordPress blog until 13, almost 14, when we lost our house due to “mysterious circumstances” never quite explained to me, and spent the next three years bouncing between hotels around Northwest Indiana. It was around this time that I found myself obsessed with Cracked.com, and started making several attempts at my own comedy-article site. I hope I’ve successfully scrubbed them all from the internet, by now, because I am sure they’re all very embarrassing.
But, looking back, it was obviously a great exercise. It was essential practice. It turned me into the writer I am today, for better or worse. I wrote so many goddamn articles, yes, but also short stories and serialized novellas and novels. I posted it all online. Not just on my own blogs but also sites like (the now-defunct) StoriesVille.com, which allowed users to upload their work and get feedback from strangers. I had spent so much time writing little stories in notebooks with nobody to read them. Now suddenly there was this invisible audience willing to engage with (most) of anything I posted? Not all of it was good feedback. Most of it was horrible! But I didn’t care. I didn’t find it discouraging. I was just thrilled to have readers. Like a real writer. What the fuck, right?
Eventually I stopped posting my fiction for free, and I started submitting to publications. Many, many rejections followed, and continue to follow. I received my first story acceptance at 17 (a terrible experience), and sold my first pro-rate story at 19 (a much better experience). I continued writing non-fiction, too. I maintained a blog right here on TalesFromTheBooth dot com, a url I came up with when I was 17, and now I’m too afraid to change it for Google search result placement reasons—although, if you try to find my last 15+ years of posts, you won’t have much luck, as I recently scrubbed everything for a clean restart. I also spent many, many years writing blog pieces for a site called LitReactor (and getting paid to do so!). I have no idea how many posts I produced there. Probably over 100? LitReactor still exists, kind of, but under new ownership and I no longer have anything to do with it. It was a great resource back in its day, though, mostly thanks to the exhausted editorial work of Joshua Chaplinsky (go buy his books; they’re all great).
Beyond LitReactor, and the occasional essay at places like CrimeReads and FANGORIA, my blog output has dwindled over the years. This site that you’re reading now has gone through waves of productivity and dormancy. At least in my experience, it became very easy to neglect personal blogs after finding (some) success on social media. Twitter especially—back when it was a useful resource and you were actually able to promote books to readers. I’ve since deleted my account there, obviously. I’m on Bluesky these days, and for a while it seemed like it held great promise in terms of promotion, but lately I’m getting the sense that it doesn’t have legs. Mods are cowardly fucks and the CEO is posting increasingly troubling troll-like behavior. How long will we stick it out before once again leaving for another alternative?
I don’t know, man, but what I do know is this: I’m so, so sick of having to move platforms. I’m tired of having to regain followers. I’m tired of “follower counts” being a thing that causes stress. We have turned ourselves into disgusting creatures, and for once I don’t mean that as a compliment. It’s so exhausting. This is all energy we could be putting into things that actually matter, like playing with dogs and setting cop cars on fire. And it’s going to keep happening, I think. The era of a social media internet is dying. We got too comfortable with never-ending newsfeeds being curated by mysterious algorithms that may or may not’ve been secretly rooted in fascism. To quote Florence & The Machine: “The Bean Dad days are over.”
So fuck it. I’m blogging again.
And honestly? You should be doing the same.
Already doing it? Planning to soon? I want to read your blog. Share a link in the comments.
Let’s pretend the world isn’t a dumpster fire. Let’s pretend that we aren’t all completely and totally doomed.
Hell, with the power of blogging, maybe…just maybe…we can fix everything.
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