I DID IT MY WAY

Dear Subscribers,

And now the end is here
And so I face that final curtain
My friends I'll make it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain

Now I'm starting to know how aging entertainers (Tony Clifton ^^) or boxers feel when they throw in the towel and then come back from retirement multiple times. Well, maybe I'm getting just a little ahead of myself here so I'll try and explain myself as clearly as I can.

Firstly, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to humbly celebrate Digital Renegade's two-year birthday which falls on this very day of 27th August 2023.

Secondly, I must thank you all for your continued support over the past few years and for the more recent subscribers in recent months. I would never have been able to write without having someone out there to write for and believe it or not, you have all been at the center of my motivation though I've never tried to second guess whether anyone will like, hate or get bored of my eclectic smorgasbord of personal and cultural essays, original stories and experiments in genre. It's partly my fault for not organising a better feedback function on the site which is something I would look to fix in the future.

This project has been for me in many ways a self-initiated apprenticeship after spending many years myopically focused on film writing. What the last two years with Digital Renegade has allowed me to achieve has been priceless to me, even though at times I'll admit I may have been a little rushed and slapdash, hot off the press, and possibly over prodigious. This 'tripping-over-my-own-shoelaces' approach to getting lots of material out has been a reflection of just how much this blog has been a passion project and an outlet for me truly expressing myself from the heart after too long having no way of sharing my work properly through frustrated creative processes that is fairly common, especially in film.

Since writing my first post 'Oracle Part 1' (27/08/21) where I set out writing my 'Digital Renegades' anthology of short stories I never imagined the blog would open so broadly out into the personal realm. Strangely, as soon as that happened, a tragic set of events unravelled with my late father becoming ill and sadly passing away. Writing at times of grief has really taught me a lot about my own inner strength and has made me realise the value of words in moments of fragile tenderness. The ability to share with you my recollections, and musings on sadness and loss meant that I wasn't just writing into a vacuum and gave me a far greater sense of value to the process of learning I've undertaken.

Yes, there were times I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

'Regrets, I've had a few' and if I am a little annoyed that I didn't manage to wrap up several anthologies I started such as 'Woke Orthodoxies', 'In The Wee Small Hours' and '808s And Heartbreak' by this date then I hope I've learned also not to rush certain things when the temptation would be just to throw them out just so I can tick those boxes off in my head.

And so, this leads me to what is next for Digital Renegade. Having done a data read of all my madcap insanity over the past few years writing on here, I had genuinely considered closing my blog down altogether and looked to re-format my entire approach to presenting my work on a different platform, including adding additional audio/visual features and who knows, that may still happen.

However, having had some surprisingly positive feedback from subscribers and various corners of the internet in the past month or two, I've decided to keep this site going for now but cut back on my overall posts so that no one is overwhelmed with endless emails from me anymore. It's now far more likely I'll stick to posting possibly just one item every week or two to subscribers (those of you happy to stick with me) and I'll publish more ephemeral pieces on my public settings should I need to get something out of topical relevance.

It's also important for me to start testing myself with longer form pieces as well as plot my return to writing for film, theatre and hopefully opera again (only properly this time) and apply everything I've learned here, returning to the simple core passion of writing that has kept me going through difficult times.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself then he has naught
Not to say the things that he truly feels
And not the words of someone who kneels
Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way

So, in a nutshell, you don't need to do anything and I've probably over-explained this situation (typical me) but I felt it was important to be clear in case some of you wonder why my posting slows down quite so significantly from this moment on.

And one last thing (for now) I would just like to thank a couple of close friends of mine (WH, RC and KB) who encouraged me from the very beginning to pursue my writing in this more personal and intimate way; it gave me the launch I needed to be relatively fearless in trying all sorts of crazy things in this giant Digital Renegade sketch book-style blog of mine.

So, in summary. As you were and as I was (or will be) and thanks again for your continued support.

And now we'll find out if less truly is more.

Yours faithfully,

Digital Renegade (Max)

23rd August 2023