THE SOLARIUM

They say the best time to plant an apple tree is twenty years ago—by that logic, I should’ve made this website when I was five.

Fortunately, the second-best time to plant is when you have a coupon for 20% off apple seeds from participating in NaNoWriMo.

I always thought the best time to create an author website is once you’re actually an author. You know—your books are in stores, readers are clamoring for updates, your website has a concrete reason to exist. It’s common knowledge, right?

Well, it’s pretty common for people to be wrong.

I’m currently a publishing MA student at Western Colorado University, and one thing my professors have emphasized is that it’s never too early to establish a platform. In fact, plenty of literary agents won’t even consider taking you on without one, professional website included.

As an anticapitalist, antisocial weirdo on the margins of life, I hear words like “platform”, “branding”, and “networking” and want to hiss and slam the door. The thought of corporatizing my writing, something so innate to who I am, disgusts me.

But I want to be known.

I don’t mean that in the “rich and famous” sense although I do like attention (as my classmates who saw me wear a velvet jacket in 90-degree heat can attest). I mean it in the simplest, most human way.

My writing is a means of being understood in and making sense of a world that is frequently confusing and hostile. I want people to see it, to see me—and I can’t do that unless I put everything out there to be seen. Sometimes, that’s going to take compromise.

I was worried about going into publishing for similar reasons. I don’t consider myself the entrepreneurial type, and seeing an hour marked off each morning of the summer residency for “coffee and networking” made me feel like I was walking into a minefield.

I’m not great at talking to people as it is, let alone making business talk. What am I doing here? I don’t even drink coffee!

Weirdly enough, before long, I was looking forward to that hour every day.

“Networking”, it turns out, is just a way of saying, “Talk to people about your writing. Listen to them talk about theirs. Bond over this thing you’ve both chosen to devote your life to.”

It’s lot of people coming together and saying, “This is what I do. I can help you with this. Oh, you do that? That’s great! I’ve been looking for someone who can!”

Once you get past the inherent awkwardness of talking to anyone about anything, let alone yourself and your achievements, it can be even be kind of fun.

There is something human and vulnerable beneath the gleaming plastic shell, the corporate coldness. There always is.

It’s a lesson I’ve learned through doing a collages: everything is art.

You can make a poem out of an ad for dog food. You can recontextualize a bland image of a field into something fascinating. You can make “networking” an opportunity to seek friendship, fellowship, and understanding.

Maybe an author website visited by no one will one day be cut and pasted into a new context, becoming part of something strange and beautiful.

Maybe this, too, can be art.

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In the future, these Constellations will include schedules of when you can expect more posts, videos, etc from me, as well as practical notes on where I’m at on various projects, but for this soft launch of the site, we’ll call it good where we are. Stay tuned, and expect a big, bold debut on December 31st!