I had not turned on a separate notification, so I did not know, but when I opened the app in the morning, I saw that I had been approved as a Brunch writer. I had applied before while running a blog, but after being rejected I had not thought about applying again for years. Then, as my writing habits changed and I began running a new blog for posting writing, I decided to apply once more. There was no way to know the criteria, and especially this time, unlike before, the pieces I had written on the blog were not deliberately chosen and written as the kind of writing I wanted to post on Brunch. So I had not expected anything. But I had been approved. I did not know why I had been rejected then, and I do not know why I was approved now, so in that sense it is almost the same kind of case. Still, having two media is better than having one, and I do think Brunch, where only writing is posted, may be better than a blog used as a place for all kinds of business.
In the past, when people wrote on Brunch and were given the title of “writer” because they had obtained the qualification to write there, it made them seem somehow as if they would write well. Now, when I read writing about Brunch on Brunch, I find myself thinking that the online environment is not likely to be especially different anywhere.
I am extremely optimistic when I look at my life. I cannot say that everything actually works out, but I have had similar dreams in the past, and because of that I have an unfounded certainty that my life is not particularly bad. So I think that even my having a company life may have involved more luck than other people, rather than a great amount of effort. In absolute terms, it may not be that I made no effort, but I feel that things may have luckily moved in the direction where I would do well. No one can walk through life while seeing the road ahead completely. We only guess the road ahead with various grounds. We judge things in the way one might say, “There is a strong damp smell ahead, so there may be a marsh or pond. Let us go around to the right. On the left path, a bad smell is mixed in more strongly.” No one knows there is a marsh as if seeing it with open eyes. In that sense, the fact that such judgments are generally right may be what it means for me to have good luck.
So the whole series of processes - writing in a notebook with a ballpoint pen, then buying a fine nib and writing with a fountain pen, changing the notebook to one with a hardcover and thick paper, changing again to a method of continuing in a computer file, and then deciding to run a blog again - all of those things, which moved forward slowly because I was concerned only with pouring out thoughts out of the desire to write, and had not actually intended or worried about them, seem to have flowed naturally toward the present, when it has become good to write. Whether in a curve or a straight line, in a one-dimensional way, without spilling into side paths or breaking off. Perhaps if I write on Brunch as well, I will refine the writing a little more before posting it.
I like my current blog. Unlike Tistory, it has preset font settings, so as long as I set up the skeleton properly at the beginning in the way I want it to look, I can simply post writing from then on without complicated settings. Brunch is clean too, but I have not looked closely at how it appears. So for a while, I think I will continue posting on the blog as well. Fiction takes time, but essays will continue to be posted as I write them, so if I do not have enough room, there may be quite a few pieces that go up only on Brunch. But because of my personality, once I make a promise, it rapidly begins to feel like something forced on my mind and the writing gets blocked. So I will not serialize on Brunch, and for that reason I think I will keep posting in both places as much as I can. It is too obvious to me that promises can make writing impossible. Even letters are like that: if I write one as a surprise gift, I can fill three or four pages, but if I promise to write a letter, filling even one page becomes agony. Essays too will probably produce far more good pieces if I post them as they come. I do not mean absolutely good, but better than if I promised to post one every week.
Writing is enjoyable, and if writing I have done in this way were recognized and could help my livelihood, there would be nothing better. Still, I am happy that the very fact that I enjoy writing has been recognized, and that I have been allowed one space in which to write. In truth, Brunch is operated for free as a matter of policy, but even if it were operated as a paid service, who would have the right to complain?
Korean original: 브런치 승인된 날