So, over a week ago I decided to get things started off on this new blog with the “Coming now” post. At that time I promised to talk more about what was going on, and then promptly got so into “The Work” that I didn’t get to it until now. Although since no one is reading this yet, I suppose it doesn’t really matter if it’s been 10 days or whatever…
In the middle of June, I up and quit my job at AboutUs.org, an internet startup which is creating a wiki-based guide to the internet. I was one of the first full-time employees at AboutUs, having started there just under two years ago. First off, I loved my job and the website, which (at it’s core) is about bringing people together to talk about the things they care about, namely their websites, businesses and other organizations (including “self”).
I greatly enjoyed the opportunity at AboutUs, and love the nature of Wiki, which fosters collaboration and ad-hoc community formation(s). Furthermore, my job utilized my writing and teaching skills to not only help write about various businesses, people and websites, but also put my pedagogy training to good use training others to write about these things themselves. However, over the past couple months as AboutUs moved closer and closer to a variety of significant milestones, I found myself realizing that something was missing in my life. It’d been almost two years since I’d written anything significant for myself and I think working 50-60 hr weeks for a startup was clogging my emotional and spiritual capacity. In short, by helping AboutUs achieve it’s milestones, I’d been delaying some of my own. So I decided to make a change.
It took some soul-searching, but I decided a clean break was necessary and resigned, effective June 16. My general plan is to spend the next few months working on (finally) finishing a short story collection. It’s currently about 80% done, with some stories that have been “finished” for awhile and some that I’m needing to write. I anticipate having a significant draft (ready to “shop around”) by the end of the summer. After that, I’ll intend to get started on a novel before beginning to look for another job. In the meantime I’ve got a few consulting and freelance opportunities to explore as well. The intervening time will also be spent “in the business of writing” – submitting work, editing, thinking, even reading, things I’ve been remiss at over the last two years.
This website is, in many ways, a springboard for my thoughts on writing, wiki, community-building and collaboration, and will also serve as a daily semi-regular record of this journey. – Tak