After taking a couple weeks, which have been quite hectic behind the scenes, to rethink my online presence, I have decided to stop posting regularly on this website. I will instead be creating PDF collections of my past work, as well as creating new ones over time, as I am still writing quite a bit these days. The nature of the Internet these days has made it untenable to have a blog that isn’t attached to social media or a mailing list. Therefore, this site will remain dormant until I have something new worth publishing at length.

Meanwhile, I will be reestablishing my blog on Obscure Curiosities, which was a project that ran off the rails a bit. It will become my full-time writing project now, where I will be compiling Notes, Resources, and Deep Dives on a variety of subjects. They will be gargantuan in scale, and eventually may grow to a length worthy of publishing (they will be available as free PDFs both there and here.)

To everyone that has supported me over the years through reading my work, I thank you. But I must divest my interest from the blogosphere and focus on more private endeavors for the time being. I will check back in whenever I have something new to publish here, but until such time, I will be working on the Obscure Curiosities open notebook project. I know it’s not going to be for everyone, as my blogging and essay writing days are essentially over, but I must do this for my own continuing growth as both a writer and a human being.

I’m at a point in my life (thirty-eight) where I need to simply and consolidate my activities online. There is simply too much noise and AI slop to contend with – I will have plenty to say on LLMs over on Obscure Curiosities both good and bad – that trying to maintain an online presence is simply not worth my effort. I will never return to social media; I’m loathe to even rejoin Substack outside of a passive readership.

Maybe one day things will become more amenable to my all-over-the-place nature. But until such a time, and I can’t foresee a time where hyper-specialization will be less necessary, I’m content to work in obscurity, post my notes, and occasionally release something compiled for the general public to peruse. I don’t need money from my efforts; my published works will from here on out remain entirely free, although I may pursue printed copies again in the future. My past works will be recompiled over time and posted here in a pinned post. Otherwise, the only updates on this website will be sporadic, probably quarterly or biannually.

Take care, everyone. No worries, Emily and I are just fine. It’s just time I stopped writing for the internet and worked entirely on myself for a change.

~ Amelia Desertsong