Dispatches from My Digital Identity Crisis
When Apple rolled out iTunes in the early noughties, I was an immediate fan. Over the years, the program, at least the desktop version, has become a Frankenstein monster, a hodgepodge of pieces that once took the world by storm but now barely hang together in a cohesive whole.
While I never took the world by storm and doubt that I ever will, my digital life has become a social desktop iTunes, a hodgepodge of career paths, false stops and starts, failures and successes; on one hand, a digital painting of my evolution; on the other, a glimpse into a past I no longer recognize.
The need for a reboot is critical.
A story…
Once upon a time, there was a guy and that guy was me. I began using social media in its nascency and in mine.
In my twenties, I was lost, adrift in the corporeal Back Bay and Belmont and Ipswich and Beacon Hill, and, God help me, Cleveland, after the end of my musical aspirations and pissed off about it; so too was I adrift in the digital, searching for meaning, searching for myself, searching for mentors, hoping that in the vast connectedness of the promise of the digital frontier, I could find the direction I so desperately sought. In 2011 and 2012, after years of searching, clicking, writing, and pushing myself, I thought I had found the answer, and, in selling the outline to Focal Press and publishing my book, Comics For Film, Games and Animation, I did find part of the answer: I had been in a creative field for all of my adult, legally smoking age and voting age, and had never been more in love with a process than I was with writing.
And, it seemed, I had something resembling a talent for it.
I turned 30 the week before I sold the outline to Comics. Less than three months later, I met the woman who, three years later, would become my wife, and my life changed forever, again. Along the way, I had to abandon the old me and craft a new one. It, like any change that forces you to examine all of your myriad failings, wasn’t easy: there was the reverse cultural shock of being back in the middle of Ohio, overcoming the feeling of being a failure, that I couldn’t “cut it” in the “big city,” and that I was in the midst of a forced retreat from everything around me and all I had known, facing the question of how would I persevere in a place where my only goal the first time around had been to escape?
All of these divergences converged into a morass of brutal change after the release of Comics, in 2013: that winter, my grandmothers died within six weeks of one another; that summer, my mother was diagnosed with Stage One and Stage Two breast cancer (right and left); in October my dog, Orson, died of stomach cancer; and, six weeks after Orson, Katie’s beloved dog Sarah, was put to sleep, after a long run of 18 years of love and Muffin-ness.
In the midst of all of that tumult, I was still writing: I was writing on a legal pad in the hospital as my mother went under anesthesia for her mastectomy, the smell of hand sanitizer invading my olfactory senses. The ritual of work (and later, the ritual of running) was my saving grace, my foundation of sanity. Coming to Quiet Country came out near the end of October 2013; Whiz!Bam!Pow! Books One, Two, Three and The Adventures of the Sentinel radio show were released from 2012 through 2014…
…and then…
On 27 June 2014, Katie and I were married in what was, and is, the happiest day of my life. It was at that moment that the two key realizations of my thirties came to pass: one, that I am happiest in life when I fall asleep every night holding my wife’s hand, thinking to myself that I want to ask her to marry me again because it’s so right; two, that I am happiest in work when I sit, day in, day out, in a flow of focused craftsmanship, working on a manual typewriter to realize the transformation of a single awful paragraph into a single great (enough) paragraph so that I may do it again, and again, and again, and have, at the end, a new book that can go on my bookshelves, next to the names who brought me the greatest joy no matter the tragedy of their words, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, I can give someone else that same joy, if only they do me the honor of adding me to their bookshelves.
And through all of this, through all of these peaks and valleys, I have been on social media.
At its best, at my best usage of it, social media is a tool that opens connections that never existed and allows me to share my work, passion, and thoughts with those of like mind and those of not; at my worst, social media brings my worst attributes—self-consciousness, resentment, jealousy, insecurity, flightiness, and most glaringly, disingenuous maskings of those feelings behind crap efforts at humor, half-hearted conversation, and sharing of any ephemeral bullshit that crosses my path—to the forefront of my digital persona and bleeds into my physical life and work. On top of it, I felt as though my well of non-book digital writing, of conversation, of having something to say, had dried up.
To those who left, you were probably smart to do so; to those who stayed, I apologize.
I aim to do better. And that’s the point of this ramble.
If my personal and creative lives have found their bliss, I need now to allow my digital to follow suit, to balance the triumvirate. As such, you may consider this a rebirth, the death of the Frankenstein monster amassed from ten years of false starts and wrong brains, and the rising of a new tide.
So, let me reintroduce myself and, by proxy, provide myself and you a statement of my digital self going forward:
I’m Tyler, and I write and I cook and I run. I am happily married and, when not writing, cooking, running, maintaining the lawns of various family members or lifting heavy things or building pergolas, I maintain the peace between two greyhounds and a Morkie. I used to be a drummer and a musician, even went to Berklee, and majored in classical composition, which was the wrong path for me but is very right for others, like my friend Uziel; the dude’s a genius.
My favorite film is Once Upon a Time in the West. There is no dispute that it is the greatest film of all time, nor is there any dispute that fried pickles are a marvelous appetizer. Do not engage me in dissent on these points, unless you come bearing fried pickles or gummi butterflies or frogs or worms or you are Claudia Cardinale circa 1968 bearing fried pickles, gummi butterflies, frogs, or worms.
Unlike the other Tyler Weaver who has been on Oprah, I am not a teenage karate black belt phenom. That Tyler Weaver could totally kick my ass. I was asked to be on Maury once, but that was because I was robbed when I worked at a wine store around the corner from John Kerry’s house after he fumbled the 2004 election. If you came here looking for that Tyler Weaver, I am not the droid you are looking for, but, what the hell, I’ll give lectures on karate. Sounds like fun. But I will not be a guest on Maury, because ethics.
I’ve written a book that people seem to like (even if I loathe the title) called Comics for Film, Games and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld. It was published in 2012 by Focal Press. I’m proud of it.
I also wrote a work of short narrative non-fiction called Coming to Quiet Country: A Journey from Pyongyang to Holmes County whose 3500 words took a year to write.
Right now, I’m writing my next book, a novel. It is my passion, my pride, my torturer and my partner in mental anguish and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I write slowly because I enjoy it, or I enjoy writing because I do it slowly; I’m not sure which.
I dedicate four days a week to the novel; the fifth to side projects like comic scripts, a series of novellas, blog posts like this one, and the Whiz!Bam!Pow! Comic.
I dedicate seven days a week to being a husband and to being a son and to being a rescue dad to my four-legged brood.
I finish what I start, no matter how many years it takes, unless it sucks, then I throw it away without remorse.
I prefer silence to talking and the company of few to the company of many.
The process is more meaningful than the result.
I tend to swear a lot; when in situations where I can’t swear, I hold my breath. Saying “darn” makes me feel dirtier than saying “fuck.”
On this site, you will find the best digital representation of me that I can give you, my words, my work; they are my lifeblood, the only currency I have in this world.
Going forward, my goal is to provide one new essay or interview per month to offset the languid pace of my book writing. And, while the subject matter of these new essays is hazy at present, I do know that they will arrive two weeks before the Spinner Rack newsletter goes out, beginning next month (August).
Now, on to the social: I have a few diplomatic embassies that are under renovation:
+ On Tumblr, my blog is FIIK, which stands for Fuck If I Know, because I don’t know what I’m going to put on there next (except for Fay Wray, The Invisible Man, baby goats, and assorted black and white photography). And, if you recall, I swear a lot. Don’t be surprised if music reviews, television reviews, film reviews, and the like show up there.
+ I need to give Twitter special mention, because that’s the place most under renovation. Over there, I’m @tylerweaver. I’m working on getting the hang of it again, so be patient. I will rarely talk about works in progress, because, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “I think it’s a pretty good rule not to tell what a thing is about until it’s finished. If you do you always seem to lose some of it. It never quite belongs to you so much again.”
If you follow me looking for writing advice or the use of the #amwriting hashtag, I’m the wrong person; I have a hard enough time following my own advice, thank you very much. There is, however, a page here that contains all I’ve learned about writing, so look there. That said, the only piece of advice that matters is sit down and do the damn work.
I tend to stay away from venting outrage in 140-character form. This is not because I don’t care, but rather out of a need to stockpile a primal emotion like anger and outrage for constructive use in my work, articles here or elsewhere, or anywhere where I feel it can do the most good to alleviate the source of said anger.
I do input purges from time to time. If I unfollow you, know that it is nothing personal, but simply a diverging of paths at that particular moment and that it may not be permanent; the digital world is all about flux. If you unfollow me, well, as The Swell Season sang, “If you’re gonna go, go with happiness”; I wish you nothing but the best.
There will be times that I’m unresponsive or go on extended hiatuses. These sabbaticals are essential to my working brain, and, to me, the work is supreme.
As for what I will talk about? Good question. I’m in the process of figuring that one out.
+ I like Instagram. It’s where my dogs live. I posted a food photo once. I’m tylerweaver there, too.
+ I’m on Snapchat, and, while I have no idea how to use it, I’m fond of the ephemeral nature of its content. I’m tylerwvr ’round those parts.
+ I’m on Facebook, but I don’t post there and the only reason I’m keeping the account is because I like to see that I’m married to my wife and remember my birthday.
+ And, last but certainly not least, my main method of communication is my monthly email newsletter, The Spinner Rack. If you like what I have to say, you can sign up and I’ll love you.
+ You can email me: tyler@tyler-weaver.com.
Welcome to the rebirth. Nice to meet you. I hope you find something of value here.
TW
