Wordbench

tl;dr up top:

• I’m dumping all my unfinished drafts.
• You’ll have to view the site’s source code to see the drafts branch.
• I hate this - and it’s kind of a step towards self-improvement do show my work in it’s larva-state.

Like anyone worth knowing – I’ve got a myriad of flaws and shortcomings.

To generalize one of these, it’s safe to say I have problems Letting Go. Specifically - letting go of my work.

I’ve got an extensive volume of childhood trauma related to my academic career, and a whole chapter dedicated to being the last kid to turn in an assignment or test while the rest of the class is held prisoner at their desks while I start my 3rd round of proofreading…

• “You’ve got time to do it right; you don’t have time to do it twice.”

Another insecurity in the 9pm-truck-stop-buffet of my mind is: lacking a creative outlet. The closest thing I have to a creative outlet is – you guessed it – writing. Despite a for-real publication under my belt, and a lifetime of encouragement and feedback – I still consider anything I write to be about as interesting as a community theater rendition of a tax return.

So when these two misfiring pistons get in sync, I end up frozen in a stagnant bog of mediocrity.

I also tend to keep my creative endeavors unseen until they’re in a somewhat completed state because I don’t want to show off my half-finished progress, and prematurely bask in people’s feedback/praise. Like edging - but for your creative dopamine rush.

• Nothing’s more deadly than the traps we set for ourselves.
• The shadows that start at our own feet are always the tallest.

I’ve had a growing backlog of posts for this site (and others) that are half-finished because it’s been impossible to sit down and churn out some words in peace for the past year.

So - I’m doing something that I never do - I’m dumping all my drafts out there for the world to see. I’m shouting some of my secrets I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Y tho:

• Embarrassment is the cost of entry…

My hope is once these are out - I’ll finally be able to get some new writing done, instead of sitting down and falling into the traps I’ve set for myself that keep me from even starting any writing, let alone finishing any.

Since ~2018 I’ve had various blog series that focus on taking all the deepweb netsec fedora-tipping basement-dwelling security street-smarts and distilling those down for the normies. However - over the years, other blogs and content creators have pretty much covered these - while also having some kind of name/brand weight.

(Specific shoutout to Mullvad for really distilling this into what I hoped to build all those years ago.)

If you’re reading this - there’s a 99.9% chance that I linked you here for something. Not because my hot-take is a beacon of truth and common sense in the tech industry.

Lastly, I’m at a point in my writing where the only way for it to improve is for it to endure the crucible of feedback.

So with all that said written: Here’s the link to my shame.