If you're looking to talk to me aboutr non-fiction writing, curation, or web product management , you might be more interested in doings at my portfolio site, garydauphin.com. This site is for fiction, dreams, and politics.
I launched the original ebogjonson.com on November 8, 2003. Back then it was called "Big Black Brain," and the first post was the first graph of a novel I'd written never tried to publish:
You read the rest of that first post here.
ebogjonson.com was an attempt to write my way out of a life problem, which was that I missed writing. Before 1999, my life had been wholly organized around writing. After 1999 it became organized around web product and project management. In so much I worked with words after 1999, it was usually to edit them rather than write them, to plot how they might be best distributed online. Another thing that happened around that time is that what I had previously understood to be my community shifted rather radically. Crumbled, really. My entire life had been shaped by my time at the Village Voice, and, when I went into the web biz, the community of writers I'd come up with kept on writing without me, some to great and envy-inducing acclaim. Thinking I soothe some the pain I felt around those thing by blogging, I launched an anonymous Movable Type-powered site where I warehoused bits of unpublished fiction, political musings, a dream log. The name I chose was the username I've been using since the mid-1990s. So much for anonymity. Like every liar, I secretly wanted to be caught.
And after a while, I was. The blog stopped being anonymous and became unexpectedly generative for me, connecting me to a small community that saw me through deaths, professional changes, political upheavals, another move. Posting waxed and waned depending on what I was doing for work, which to say: depending on how much time I had to feel the ache of my underlying life problem. I worked for myself when I moved to CA in 2005, and the years immediately after were particularly prolific. I blogged a ton here, writing a few posts that were small-blog-sized hits. Away from here, I did what I think is some of the best writing of my career. Even when I went back to work full time, I made sure to keep this domain up to date and migrated ebogjonson.com from MT to Drupal to more Drupal to Kirby, depending on my mood and what I was using to build sites for clients and employers
Now I have an additional life problem in addition to missing writing, which is that I'm sick to death of social media. At some point--I can't say when, exactly--the energy that I used to put into updating this site went into compulsively sharing and commenting on someone else's, and I think I am very much the worse for it. I recently undertook a Cal Newport-style program of digital minimalism, and as a part of that, I've completely eliminated Facebook and Instagram, I am wrestling with Twitter. The goal was to put some of the time that had gone to better use in other places but results have been mixed.
In terms of ebogjonson.com, I'm not exactly sure what form this reclaimation project will take. Sharing dreams and fictions will likely be a part of it, in so much as I have any to share. I also want to republish some of my favorite posts from the old blog. Some of them feel relevant.
Anyway, that's that. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line. Again, work-work site is here. Either way, and even if you've never been here before: welcome back!
- Gary/ebog