introductions are in order.

Hey, hey, how’s it going! Can you believe this is blog number one! What a world we live in, eh? Looks like I’ve got yet another excuse to wax poetic and chat a bunch of shite for no reason. What a treat.

If you’ve made it this far into the website, you’ve probably gotten to know me at least somewhat decently by now. Hell, maybe our relationship is even parasocial by this point. You tell me, buster. But let me reiterate for you where I’m at just now, and why I’m making a blog, and a website, and a portfolio in the first place.

If you haven’t been paying attention, my name is Rory, and I’ve just moved my entire life from Edinburgh down to the big smoke to live in London again. It’s been almost seven years since I’ve lived here, and I’m now living with family again (like most single people in their twenties), so there’s definitely some adjusting to do. But on the whole, it’s been pretty nice so far. I’m very much a family person - I’ve got a bunch of siblings and step-siblings, all with partners, so family is a pretty big thing here - and it’s great to be back in touch and seeing everyone more often. I’ve got a bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a long time here as well, so it’s going to be good to reconnect and get back in touch.

I moved for a few reasons, really:

Firstly, I miss living in a big city. Edinburgh is beautiful and I loved my life there, but it started feeling small towards the end. And London is so much fun, it must be said. Even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Secondly, I’m looking to get properly stuck into the arts as a career. I’ve been performing as a drag queen for the past few years, which I loved, but I’m ready to start focussing on some other things, mainly my writing practice. I’m not saying goodbye to Alicia by any means - she may well be back in the future - but I wanted to reprioritise and start putting in the groundwork for larger scale projects I’ve been wanting to work on for years. More on that later.

Thirdly, I needed a change. I was starting to feel stuck in my life and I needed a kick up the keister to get myself going. With the world the state that it is, and things looking pretty bleak, I needed to switch things up to clear my head and re-ground myself to focus on what I really care about, and the causes that matter to me.

So, lots of reasons. And also just for fun! I’d been in Edinburgh for seven years, and when I moved there, I was nineteen and just starting university. I’m a massively different person now, and I’ve been through a bunch of different phases in between. So I’m excited to see how my current self tackles big city life. I’m looking forward to it.

Currently, I’m working on a novel. That’s my main project. I’ve been wanting to write and publish a book since I can remember, and I’m making some pretty decent progress towards making that dream a reality. I’m about 83k words in (just under halfway through, as far as I can tell), and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I knew I needed to fall in love with writing again after such a big hiatus, so I decided to not go for any of the ideas I’ve been cooking up for years and start from scratch with a passion project. It’s heavily inspired by Wiccan culture, featuring witches, Tarot, and a healthy dose of fantasy worldbuilding thrown in. I’ve always been into fantasy, and I figured it would be a good genre to start with if I’m wanting to have some fun with writing again. I’ll probably do another blog post going into more detail on it specifically, but that’s a general overview so far.

I’ve not been able to write much recently, to my chagrin. The last couple weeks of January were chockablock with leaving dos and packing and cleaning and drinking, and then this past week has been very social and very productive in different ways. I’ve been putting together this website as a portfolio for job applications, I’ve been working on my CV, and generally I’ve been trying to figure out next steps to get my fingers in pies and feet in doors, as it were. And it feels like it’s going well so far. I’m happy with how everything’s looking here, and I think it’s a pretty decent indication of who I am as a creator and as a person. But who’s to say? I guess the proof is in the pudding. Just in case you wanted another idiom thrown in there.

So, that’s where I’m at just now. I’ll keep it short and sweet for this first one, but life is good at the moment. At least in my personal life: the world is falling apart and everything is fucked, but you have to keep trucking along somehow. I’ll get into that another time as well. I’m ready for this new chapter, excited to see how it pans out, and ready to do the work in a bunch of different ways. So, wish me luck I guess.

Bisous x