I’ve been meaning to start a blog or website for a while. As I write this, I’m a year and a half through my dream university course, studying writing and editing at RMIT.

But there is a niggling feeling as I sit in my classes. A fear that once I’m done here, once I have to leave (something I’m putting off by studying part-time), I will be in a sort of abyss. RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing program has a built-in writing community, one that I completely cherish, and the thought of leaving it terrifies me. It’s mid-year break at the moment, so this fear is especially strong because I have too much time on my hands to worry about ending up a lonely little writer with notebooks and sketchbooks full of ideas and no one there to share them with.

To remedy this fear, I took myself on a city trip. I went to the art gallery and saw an installation piece at St Paul’s Cathedral. I walked through Readings and let myself hover in the art section, absorbing the wisdom of creative people who, from the outside, seem to have their shit together more than I do.

Although I’ve followed Austin Kleon for years and hugely admire him, I’d never read any of his books in full, so I picked up Show Your Work! when its bright yellow cover peaked out at me from across the shelves. I devoured it in a single morning, underlining madly. It was perfect timing.

I’m a person who makes a lot of things and I struggle a little with social media. I have an Instagram account for my writing and one for my visual art. I keep them separate because I’ve always felt I have to separate the two. Even though some of my heroes – David Shrigley, Shaun Tan, Lauren Child – combine text and image, I’ve always felt like an imposter if I try to describe myself in a similar vein to them. I’m not an author-illustrator, I’m not a Shrigley-style artist. I’m too small or not talented enough to be any of those things.

Except that’s bullshit. I write and I draw and I combine the two. I’m embracing the fact that I write novels and comics and zines and poems and that I can’t keep myself from writing on my sketches and drawing on my written drafts. I need a place to share both, and I need a place to be findable. A place to think out loud, as Kleon puts it.

In order to be found, you have to be findable

Austine Kleon, Show Your Work!

So this is what I’m hoping to do with this blog. I’m starting small. I’m doing something as often as I can and sharing it. That’s always been my approach to writing: small amounts of progress almost every day builds up quick.

Something is better than nothing. And lots of little somethings can build up into something big.