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Old Office, Old Blog, Old Secrets

Updated: Oct 19

I can't possibly start this, a new blog, without addressing the legacy of my previous one. It feels like a neccessary throat-clearing.


After all, my old Livejournal account will always be intrinsically linked with my writing history. Some folks already know this story, either because they were there to witness it, or they've read some of my authors' notes which reference this period of my life.


In my 20s, I blogged on Livejournal nearly every single weekday for almost 10 years. This might seem like an impressive, sustained commitment until you find out why I did it. It was less about consistency and more about desperation.


It was my decade-long secret.


My blog was a way to stay in touch with people I wasn't allowed to interact with openly. It was my anchor point to fandom, to the community I read from and wrote for.


The reason I blogged mainly on weekdays was because I could only do it from work. My work computer, and by extension, my office, was a haven. Free from key-loggers and the other mechanisms people use to control and abuse.


On that computer, I could communicate with whomever I wanted to and write whatever I wanted. Before this precious office job, I wrote most of The Dragon’s Bride huddled over my laptop in various storage closets at my part-time retail job. For the longest time, I couldn't write without feeling anxious, even when I had no reason to be.


It’s no surprise that the main reason I stayed in the same job for ten years, post-graduation, was because I didn’t want to lose the freedom it afforded.


I certainly didn't do my career any favours. Colleagues came and went over the years (good friends, all of them). I stayed, unwilling to lose my access to a hobby I couldn't live without. Keeping this massive secret from my significant other became second nature to me. It became a very unhealthy ‘normal’.


The people in the community who knew about my domestic situation helped to keep me hidden and safe online. This entailed creating new aliases and accounts as needed and is the reason why I wrote under three different pen-names and why my earlier fics moved from archive to archive. In fact, my current alias, 'Rizzle' was picked because it was ubiqutious enough to stay under the radar.


I managed to get other stuff done in that decade, for better or worse. I got married, had a daughter, and then 2 years after she was born, I went through a nightmare of a divorce. The breakup was long overdue, arguably. That didn't make it any easier, though.  


During the proceedings, my writing was used to justify assertions about my moral character. The support I received from fandom friends was unbelievable. They wrote statements and testimonials. People sent me and the kiddo care packages from all over the world. They even came to visit. Two fandom friends actually flew all the way from LA to Sydney from and accompanied me to court. Amazing. 


During that horrible time my writing probably kept me going. I wrote the majority of my fandom pieces and laid out the foundations for the story that became Love In A Time of the Zombie Apocalypse (which took another decade to complete). 


Life completely changed once I was out of that relationship and living on my own with my kid. I worked like I’d never worked before. I went back to school (didn’t finish, but that was a necessary learning curve, too). I was finally able to live like I wanted to - true to myself, without shame and fear.


To this day, I occasionally marvel at the fact that I don’t have to hide any of this. That I don’t have to hide you. It’s been nothing short of magical to be able to tell stories and share them.


So, thank you for reading my stuff, either past or present. And if you’ve been with me since my Livejournal days, since Coloured Grey and Contraveritas, it's good to be back <3

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