The spousal unit recently shared on Twitter a post I wrote back in 2007 about surveillance, privacy, governmental overreach, and Cory Doctorow’s wonderful book, LITTLE BROTHER. It got me to thinking about who I used to be, and who I am now.
I have found it hard to speak publicly, since leaving the day job–both in my fiction, and here on the blog. That didn’t used to be the case, and my post about Cory’s book reminded me of this.
Part of it was learned behavior. As a consultant, you can’t afford to be noisy and opinionated. Tact is critical, if you want to keep your job. Now I don’t need tact! Yay! So I’m having to unlearn that habit.
But there’s something deeper going on, as well. To be a good writer, you have to be both entertaining and truthful about important things. Yeah; OK. But I don’t know anymore how to boil my experiences and observations down into good narrative. My thoughts feel disorganized and interdependent and nonlinear, and the twined coils of multiple humiliations and disappointments run through them. It’s hard to expose these to the air.
Continue reading Traveler seeks home; speaker seeks voice; leaper seeks faith
