Young Chai. AI-generated editorial image; an imagined reader, not a photograph of a visitor to this website.
I have been writing steadily on Brunch for five months, and I feel that I have used the time well. There are essays I would not otherwise have written, things I have learnt, and work that has developed into papers. I am pleased with that. I would also welcome a little more response to what I put into the world.
I have no wish to promote each piece through Instagram, Facebook or group chats. Exchanging likes out of obligation does not appeal to me either. I understand that sharing a link is one way of helping a piece find its readers. I simply do not want much of my time to go into asking people to look.
This leaves me with a small difficulty. I would like the work to be read, while choosing not to do some of the things that might bring it to people’s attention. I cannot expect that choice to have no effect. For now, I am comfortable making it, even if I sometimes wish the response were greater.
The writing itself gives me something I can recognise more clearly. Some subjects develop across a series of pieces. Writing from my visit to Linz has also led into work on a paper. The essays, the knowledge and the manuscripts remain, whatever response an individual post receives. That helps me judge how the time has been spent.
A like is a welcome sign, though I am unsure how much I can infer from its absence. Someone might read a piece without pressing anything. Someone else might look briefly and leave. I have no reliable way to distinguish those possibilities from silence alone. I do not want to fill that silence with either disappointment or an imagined audience.
When I think of one reader, I think of someone who has a reason to be here: an interest in photographs, in making images, or in a question that also matters to them. They need not agree with me. I would be glad if a piece gave them something worth considering, even if I never heard about it.
I would still enjoy hearing from a reader. I have no reason to pretend otherwise. But I want to leave room for a visit that asks nothing in return. The website can hold the work while I get on with the next piece, and whoever finds it can decide how much time to spend here.
