On Writing & Worlding — Part 1 of 2
Hi everyone,
I have a practice of keeping online “notebooks” —
Before coming to this “notebooks” metaphor, I felt this intense pressure to have a “single place online where all my writing exists.”
Once I decided this didn’t need to be true, and that my writing was actually better because it was formed in a particular and specific world, I was able to feel confident in creating separate, disparate worlds that would eventually symbiotically coexist to create a broader whole. I hope that makes sense! Feel free to continue if you’re curious.
Laurel
p.s. Next week, I’ll share another metaphor for writing & worlding.
“Metaphor unites reason and imagination,” says George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book, Metaphors We Live By (1980). “Metaphors are not merely things to be seen beyond. In fact, one can see beyond them only by using other metaphors. It is as though the ability to comprehend experience through metaphor were a sense, like seeing or touching or hearing, with metaphors providing the only ways to perceive and experience much of the world. Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.”
Artists excel at creating worlds. They do this first for themselves and then, when they share their work, for others … World-building means creating everything — not only making things inside the world but also the surrounding world itself — the language, style, rules, and architecture.
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To write, I first must world
Over the decades I’ve been on the internet, I’ve admired bloggers.
It’s beautiful to write on one’s own platform about anything that interests you. Especially when that writing wouldn’t easily be accepted on a platform that already exists.
But I’ve often felt like an outsider. That is, I never felt like a blogger myself. Why? Maybe because, despite admiring bloggers, I never felt like I would write about any of the same things they did, or in the same way, for whatever reason.
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Somehow though, despite everything, I started blogging.
Over the past few years, I actually created a few different blogs. But I call them notebooks.
While easily overlooked, naming them “notebooks” is important. Traditionally a “notebook” is something you have multiple of … in the paper world, you often have different notebooks for different purposes. Whereas a “blog” feels like you have only one and it’s this monolithic thing. So inherently notebooks are less precious and more context-specific than blogs.
Going the notebook route allowed me to more easily write. In other words, I first created the world (the environment … feeling, constraints, audience, etc.), and then the writing came naturally.
These are some of my notebooks:
Ellipsis
This is a notebook I only write to when I’m in motion.
https://notebooks.laurel.world/ellipsis
It originally started as an experiment on the p2p web (specifically: “Beaker Browser”) because the technology enabled me saving offline and then it syncing whenever I was online. I’ve kept it up for ~3 years now, posting intermittently … whenever I’m on a train, plane, boat, or even walking. I gave a talk about this notebook once, and I keep references surrounding it, too.
Pomera
With this notebook, I create all my entries first on the Pomera DM30, an e-ink typewriter.
https://notebooks.laurel.world/pomera
I started this notebook when I was traveling in Japan and Korea, summer 2019, pre-pandemic. I had been curious about “distraction free” writing devices for a while. So when I landed in Japan, one of my first stops was to buy a Pomera DM30, a simple e-ink typewriter that saves .txt files to an SD card. All the entries on Pomera are written with it and then translated into HTML. Sometimes I would add photos. I don’t update this anymore — it’s more a time capsule of that special summer.
Reflections
This notebook is my 2020 email newsletter sent to friends.
https://notebooks.laurel.world/reflections
I had a regular email newsletter during 2020 I sent to friends called “Reflections.” This is that newsletter as a website. I used the newsletter to reflect on things often overlooked in the world. The wind chime emoji 🎐 was the newsletter’s mascot. In other words, I tried to pick up the wind. When I felt something invisible but interesting … I rang the bell … I wrote. At the end, I reflected on reflections! “By choosing to write (or create generally), we have more probes out in the world. We extend our nervous system and become more sensitive to the world, understanding what’s most palpable to us now.”
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While I said I felt like an outsider in the blogging world, it might be more true to say that I’ve felt like an outsider almost everywhere in life, not just blogging. This is likely why special friendships and work situations in which I’m appreciated for what I’m truly good at are so vital to me. I’ve also enjoyed using the internet to connect with others who feel different, to realize we’re not as alone as we may first believe.
This circles back to a larger idea I’ve been thinking about … “world-building as self-care.” For those of us who feel different, who don’t easily fit into structures of this society or this world, we have to make our own structures, definitions, and taxonomies to feel at home — that is, to build our own world. And while others might be confused why we spend so much energy inventing new names and containers seemingly constantly, it’s important to remember doing this helps us simply exist … so that we can connect in this one world we share.
This is Laurel’s “Another Day in the Dome” newsletter, which is sent frequently. The above writing is something written by Laurel last year originally, but feels important to circle back to today, especially as this very newsletter is being formed. Stay tuned for part 2 next time. Full and expanding references can be found in this Are.na Channel: On Writing & Worlding. Thank you for experiencing this transmission!