I'm a real writer, you have to believe me!

   Thank you again to my friend Ashna for reminding me to use my website, it's a very beautiful artform I don't use frequently enough.

  The thing about identification with any label is that you have to constantly justify it's validity to yourself. As a transsexual[1] woman, I have no issue validating my gender identity, because I have people validate that identity externally. People in my real life and online all refer to me in that manner, so justifying the label to myself is trivial.

  But the label of "writer" is much more nebulous. What do I write? How do I demonstrate that fact to the world? *Why* do I wish to be defined that way? I think, in a subconscious sense, I want to be a writer because the people that I look up to the most identify with the label of writer. Kimya Dawson, Laura Les, Torrey Peters, Jeff Rosenstock, Theo Hilton, James Robert Baker, Sion Sono, Sidney Gish, I could go on forever. But these are some of the people that I admire the most. Every last one of them elevates my life and inspires me to think about life in manners deeper than surface level, giving me the language and frameworks to poetisize the mundane into something funny, meaningful, or unique, and I wish to do the same in other people's lives.

  Maybe I'm being a little harsh on myself, the subconscious desire may motivate me, but the I think the conscious desire is quite a bit stronger. It's the same pull I have towards being a musician, the process of writing makes me really, really happy. Changing my thoughts from intangible jumbles of nonsense into something real, something I could hold in my hands and read, something that might connect with another, is just addicting. It's intrinsically motivating in a way that few other artforms feel to me right now.

  I've been attempting to write more frequently every day. I began journaling again, and I've started sending physical letters to out of state friends. These activities don't create art that can shared with a lot of people, it's beauty curated and dedicated to the minimum possible audience (me and/or my friend). This is a more intrinsic enjoyment of art that I've attempted to cultivate in my inner art world more as of late. It's the same reason I pour so much creative energy into the TTRPG campaign me and my friends do, it's just a good ass time to collaborate on a little story with the ones I cherish the most.

  Anyways, that's all I have to write for now. I'll return with another, more substancial blogpost soon. Hopefully not in another 5 months.

  [1] I've gotten a lot of questions on why I use the word transsexual to describe myself. I think that would require an entirely seperate blogpost to fully explain, but in short, I connect to the label as a way of linking my identity to the history of queerness in the 20th century, something that I feel quite pained about being so fully disconnected from. I have a strong desire to respect the fags that came before me, and this is a small way of honoring/relating to them.