Welcome to my new little slice of the Internet.
For my kicking-it-all-off-first-post I guess I need to explain, as my son likes to say, “What’s going on here!” So, as I tell my students to do, I’m going to fall back on the 5 Ws to try and make it all clear.
WHO?
My name is Jeff Xilon. I’m in my early 30s, married and have a four-year old son. A little over 10 years ago I finished up my BA in Political Science and a few months after that I hopped a plane to come to South Korea to teach English to kids in an after school Academy. More than a decade later I’m still here, but now I’m teaching basic English conversation to university students. I’m a gamer (board, computer and RPG) and a geek (and was before it was cool). I love movies, TV, books and comics. I cheer for the Ottawa Senators; I watch too much MMA. I swear and argue with people far more than is generally considered polite. Oh, and I want to be a writer – but more on that momentarily.
WHAT?
This place, Looking for a Rabbit Hole (at www.jeffxilon.com), will be my primary web presence as a (future) writer. Anyone interested will be able to follow my stumbling steps towards paid wordsmith. At least that’s the hope. Of course the journey could take quite some time; I have no illusions to the contrary. I’m starting from scratch as I work my way towards this goal that I may never actually achieve so there is a strong likelihood that updates on this new career could be rather few and far between to begin with. Also, at the beginning it will be likely that I’m mostly talking to myself over here in a dark corner of the world wide web. For these reasons I’ll be blogging about other interests I have as well, especially if they in any way relate to my growth as a writer. After all, the hope is that eventually someone will be paying attention to “Looking for a Rabbit Hole” and I better have something to say when they do.
WHERE?
OK, this W is not particularly useful in this case. The where is here and if you’re reading this post I assume you’ve figured that out already. On the weird chance that you are somehow reading this somewhere other than where it was originally posted I’ll just be clear: “Looking for a Rabbit Hole” can be found at www.jeffxilon.com
WHEN?
I’ll be aiming to work on this blog several days a week at least. At the time of this post I can say I have zero experience in putting together my own website so there will be a lot of tinkering going on as I figure out how things work. I would like to develop some regular features that can fill the gap time between specific career updates. I will also find things to blog about as needed to keep the place from going stagnant. If nothing else, regular blogging equals regular writing, even if it is unpaid and very different from writing fiction.
WHY?
Always a popular question. Why make a blog about wanting to be a writer? Partly because I think there is a chicken and egg problem facing someone in my position. To build an audience in today’s day and age an online presence can be very important. On the other hand no one is going to notice your online presence if you don’t have an audience. If and when I get something published I can expect that some who read it will google my name. It’d be nice if there was something out there for them to find (other than my small gallery of kabbadi photos – more on that another day). Until that wonderful day arrives though what do I do with a personal website? Just leave it sitting, an outline of its future self awaiting purpose? Seems to me I might as well build up my little place on the web while I build up my career.
Another very important reason why: This is a proactive step to reaching my goals. I’m putting a message out here for public display: I want to be a writer. Maybe I will succeed and maybe I will fail but putting that declaration out there and then doing nothing about will mark me in a way I really don’t care for. This post, that begins this blog, is the snowball at the top of the hill. I’m setting it rolling and inviting you all to watch. I might not become a full time writer, but I’m certainly going to try.