I’m ushering in a new era for SleeplessDystopian.com—one that breathes fresh purpose into my research, my writing experiments and the whatever art I create here (even if it’s not yet my vocation). For years I’ve treated this site and its accompanying Substacks as a sandbox, laying down ideas and testing them with the hope that someday I’d produce work worthy of publication and capable of making a real difference.
But I’ve come to see my current setup as something of a mismatch: a content-management system built on social-network technology, yet one where I’ve largely ignored the community-building features. I’ve used it mainly for articles—on politics, fiction settings, various themes—and as a sounding board for my activism. Those things will continue, but the form they take will evolve.
I’ve long dreamed of running a dedicated writers’ community, a place where we work together to enhance our writing, help each others work get noticed and tackle some of the world biggest problems. Many years ago I even launched an underground writers’ site—yet I lacked the confidence to offer craft advice, given my own doubts about my education and writing. Now I realize that while I may not be the right person to teach plot structure or line-editing, I can absolutely help writers (and activists, creatives, artists of every type) navigate marketing optimizations: stretching budgets, finding audiences, grappling with the technical and behavioral tactics big businesses use every day to sell products and shape minds.
At the same time, I’ll use this platform to explore how technology, corporations and governments are chipping away at our freedoms, surveilling our movements, muzzling dissent, coercing and controlling us through the lens of the genre I’ve found myself writing in: cyberpunk and dystopian. These genres are inherently political, serving as both cautionary tales and warning bells for the dangerous path we’re on—and, alas, for some, a blueprint on how to accelerate the descent.
So I’ll devote SleeplessDystopian.com to that creative passion—and I invite fellow writers, artists and cyberpunks to join me. Let’s use these genres and this space to shine a light on the systems of control creeping into our lives as we sleepwalk toward a dystopian future.
Who knows we may be able to stop it.
Comments