This is my second website. My first is for my “Real” job. At my Real job, I also write. A lot. A ton. And I read a ton, too. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much all I do is write and read, and then talk to people about what I wrote or read. Back and forth. On and on.

The writing and the reading at my Real job has subjects that are dictated by the job description. So, 90% of the time, I write within the confines of a wide or narrow subject. I do, the other 10% of the time (and, truth be told, maybe a little bit more for me), get to color outside the lines. This could be in an email, an analysis or critique of other writing, or, in a report. I can also color outside the lines when making comparisons or arguing (not arguing like screaming and yelling at your daughter when she breaks curfew and her “reasons”) why something that I wrote is more accurate, precise, or frankly, correct, than what someone else wrote.

I love my Real job. I feel fortunate to have a Real job that continues to challenge me, and after I have been doing it for some long amount of years that I would rather ascribe a number to in this paragraph. I talk with a lot of others that have the same Real job as me, or other Real jobs, and lots of them are counting the days to retirement. They moan and complain. They get angry. They talk about how it used to be. They ask me “what’s my number?”

“My number?” I say. And they look at me like I’m a dullwit. They are asking me, I realize, about a dollar amount I need in order to ride off into the sunset and never work again. I sigh.

I don’t have a number. So long as my Real job continues to challenge my brain, keeps me thinking analytically and pragmatically, and people want to hire me. I’m in.

This website is for another job, which I am having trouble naming. First, because it’s not a job. At least not yet. Second, because it’s scary, even having this website sethkaplanwriter.com and @sethkaplanwriter on the IG. And third, because I’ve been this at this job for a long time, since middle school, actually, so I feel late to the party.

I have a creative nonfiction essay out for review right now called “Like, Herpes.” “Like, Herpes,” using a meta approach, traces my writing life starting with letters that I wrote home to my parents from summer overnight camp. Those letters are the first primary evidence I have that putting words on paper was something I did to convey feeling; and what feelings they were.

I wrote those letters 40 years ago.

I can erase this website and blog post at any time, and since only 17 people will likely have seen it . . .  I guess it will be forever captured on the web? But only kind of. Presently, my goal with this blog is to post when inspired, on any topic, when my notebook, notes app, or computer just might not be the right place for something, yet. It’ll go here.

For permanence.

Or not. I’ll also link to my Instagram, or the other way around, however it works. I will send smoke signals and carrier pigeons as well, where appropriate. I’m looking forward to it.