A very wise young woman gave me the title of this post while I was listening to the post-screening panel discussion of The Black Girl Project. She declared, “love is not an emotion, it’s a discipline.”

While the young woman was referring to romantic love, I’d like to remix the sentiment of the quote, so that it applies to my writing. I eat, breath, and sleep by the pen. It is the only activity that tugs on my heart and truly the only thing that I can see myself doing at 95 years old. Massaging words will never get old and constructing thought-provoking sentences remains my livelihood.

I’m not sure how I got to this place of writing particularly about gender & sexuality. I guess that I would blame it on going to the queerest university in the United States lol. While it did not teach me how to write, New York University made me the social thinker that I am.

That being said, this week’s hiatus of content on my blog is due to just that…thinking. After penning my second article for Clutch, its popularity must have gotten wind with one of the editors over at Carnal Nation. Not only did they ask to repost my piece on Female Masculinity, but they invited me to pen some original content for the site. As Carnal Nation pieces typically are longer than the standard 500-750 word blog post, it took tremendous time and effort for me to think through my intellectual argument and make it digestible. I finished my first piece tonight and I am excited to share it with you all to see your thoughts. Just to give a teaser, I titled the article Hip “Pop” is Drag: Butches, Femmes, & Homothugs (this title may be changed by the editors though, so don’t hold your breath lol). I essentially discussed popular stereotypes of homosexuality in hip “pop” (my name for this contemporary popular music that is so different from original hip hop). It was a tough intersectional argument, but I pray that I nailed it. I like to come out the womb kicking anytime I start writing for a new site.

I’ll be sure to post the article on my blog once it’s up. I suspect that it will be published sometime next week.

As I profess my love for writing, I need to do a better job at discplining myself to keep y’all updated through posting on my blog. I sometimes feel like there’s no point in writing unless I have something “deep” to say, but not everything has to be deep. Sometimes simple thoughts are enough

Thank you everyone for your kind words and support through the writing process. It has truly been a crazy two days.

xoxoxo

Arielle Loren