Where am I?#
First, welcome to this place, regardless of how you found it. Depending on where you are reading these words they might be packaged as a blogroll, a toot, or some other feed-based mechanism designed to list the right words in the right order. If you can make any sense of what you’re reading, then I suppose you’ve found my blog. This place (of indefinite form, origin, or locale) is where I will be posting snippets of writing (both fiction and non), poetry, essays on art and culture, and any number of other mid-length pieces for people to read.
Who are you?#
My name is A.B. Murrow. I am a writer who works as a web developer by day. In my professional career, I have built custom websites and enterprise-scale business management software for clients all over the United States, but I originally went to school for English literature. The irony is not lost on me. To be honest, the content of this blog could have gone either way if I had decided to make it a couple of years ago instead of today. No matter what decisions I made earlier in life, it seemed that I was eventually going to end up writing about language: either the English language or any number of bizarre, unsightly programming languages.
For instance:
>++++++++[<+++++++++>-]<.>++++[<+++++++>-]<+.+++++++..+++.>>++++++[<+++++++>-]<+
+.------------.>++++++[<+++++++++>-]<+.<.+++.------.--------.>>>++++[<++++++++>-
]<+.
Why is this here?#
Honestly, the problem is this: I’ve been doing the software development thing for so long that I recently realized I desperately needed a creative outlet. In more recent times, I started writing again as a way to get all of these annoying story ideas out of my head so I could get some proper sleep. Some of the more exciting ones will make their way here.
Moving forward you should expect to see posts in the following forms:
- Experimental literature and speculative fiction
- Writing prompts that challenge you to expand your skills and break out of your writing rut
- Deep dives into constrained writing and the Oulipo movement
- Unpublished works of nontraditional poetry, short stories, snippets of dialogue
- Personal stories, flash fiction, and slice-of-life pieces
- Critical reviews of dubious authority and authenticity concerning art, film, music, and assorted subject matter
I’ve also been playing around with writing topical essays focused on the role silence plays in culture, art, and my own life. Some ideas I’ve been playing with include:
- Scam artistry both as a nuisance and as entertainment
- A musician who composed an orchestra made up of its listeners
- The invention of the number 0 and how it led to the biggest computing mistake ever
- How to break the law by taking a shower
- And more…
What is this thing?#
Lastly, apologies for being cagey about not outright just calling this a blog or website. It is those things, but like so many things on the internet these days, this isn’t strictly a website. This place is also a node on the fediverse: a distributed, community-driven network of social media platforms and websites all sharing content with one another outside of the walled gardens of Meta, X, or other bloated billionaires. In other words, it’s a new take on the old internet. More private, more direct, more grassroots, and, hopefully, more fun.
What does that mean for you? Probably nothing. For instance, you can keep reading this blog at https://abmurrow.com and let that be the end of it, or you can follow the things I write at @abmurrow from apps like Threads, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Hubzilla, and many more. Plus, you can comment on any post using a fediverse account, and that comment will show up on the website. I will also be using a good old-fashioned RSS feed, so feel free to use that instead if you prefer.
Where do we go from here?#
I guess I’m just going to thank you for stopping by. My aim is to invite you back sometime when I have more to say. If this is the only post ever made on this thing, you will know I have failed.
Edit 11/4/2024#
Since I migrated this blog to Hugo, there is no longer an ActivityPub integration. It was fun while it lasted! My goal is to implement a bare bones version so people can follow the blog on the Fediverse. Stay tuned!
