Obligatory Introduction Post (And Personal Reflections on Branding as an Aspiring Writer)

Art on a window of a pink flamingo waving

Can I just say? I love this image. It's awesome. Look at this mildly concerned bird-person. I love them.

Can I also say that writing these types of posts is just...kind of awkward? Got to show yourself to the world but then you have to balance how you sound. Do you come off weird? Pretentious? Possibly needing medical evaluation?

I remember having issues about introducing myself during University. Making an impression is hard. You want to seem interesting enough for people to take an interest in you but you don't want to come on too strong, and in just in a few sentences.

Anyway...

Hello there! Welcome to my blog. Firstly, thank you for checking my little corner of the internet out. It means a lot.

I'm E.S.Wills, an aspiring writer.

Well, I do have a story published. Pigeon in ‘Museum pieces’, an issue of Riptide Journal edited by Rob Magnuson Smith and Andy Brown in 2023. It was about a taxidemy pigeon in the KCL Museum of Life Sciences.

I think I grapple with the sense that beyond Pigeon I haven't put much else out there...

Yet.

Which is why I still call myself 'aspiring'. And why I'm starting this blog.

Seriously, so many writers online tell you to start a blog. It's almost like the single vital pre-requisite to be called a writer is to buy a domain and write a blog. And I've tried before. I used to have a Tumblr, previously tried WordPress (and had an absolutely terrible time using and subsequently trying to cancel BlueHost, but that's another story). Now I've decided to hunker down and just make that damn blog! So here I am. Hello world, it's E.S.Wills.

I used to try and aim for a Dark Academia aesthetic when I previously tried to introduce myself to the world as a writer. I've admired writers who've presented themselves with much of the same. The thing is, I didn't feel like it was authentically me.

Sure, the things I do write sway towards darker themes and topics.

But that isn't my entire personality. It's not really how I carry myself. As cool as it would be to wear dark tweed suits and brood in centuries-old library nooks with a cup of tea and a very nice pen, it's not really reflective of myself.

I'm nerdy as heck.

That's just an honest truth about who I am as a person. I felt like trying to chase a serious writer aesthetic pushed me into a corner and I felt inauthentic as a result and just stopped trying to put things out there.

Maybe other aspiring writers feel the same? Or people that have developed their branding but started out in the same place.

Maybe instead of nailing an aesthetic we just have to put ourselves out there, as rough and unrefined as we are. As full of inconsistencies and holes, but at least reflective of some level of personal honesty. I like dark media. I also laugh at dumb memes. I like horror. I like cute things too. Sometimes I talk or write about topics with a level of introspective seriousness but then I laugh at one-word sentences.

That's at least how I'm approaching this blog. I want to be serious about my craft, of course. But I want to give myself leeway with this blog to be...well, whatever I want it to be. Funny. Introspective. Educational. Just whatever comes to me as a result of making it. Ultimately, something honest to myself as a writer. A place where I can just be me.

I do feel everyone deserves that in some capacity. Some sort of outlet to be themselves. Whether it's with other people or on your own.

I do have places where I'm myself. Though I do often have that sense that as a person I am putting on masks. My work mask is different to my mask I wear with my partner, which is different to my mask around friends and my mask around family.

I feel I don't let myself wear my writer's mask, as much as I want to, because I keep feeling I need to live up to the expectations I place on myself about what being a writer means.

It means writing everyday. It means actually sending my works off. It means having a portfolio. It means being serious and artistic in everything I do.

Or maybe I could just let those expectations go, and just develop myself as a writer in a way that comes naturally?

That sounds rather nice, actually.

I think the biggest roadblock I've approached as a writer has been allowing myself to just give it a go, letting go of expectations and just writing what I want to write first and foremost.

I hope this blog offers me an outlet to do that. And maybe it'll give you something interesting to read.