"This is your blog post."
That's how the basic filler of this post started before I deleted the rest. This is, and isn't, my first blog post. I've been journaling and writing and blogging for years, since I learned the skill, but this is the first time I've started to do it publicly for myself. It's a big excursion, a jump into the future, not just a leap of faith. The first swipe of concrete on a foundation, on a plot of land that I've dug out for myself for a little bit.
Time to start building. I've got the drywall here, the frame is set up. Things will be filled in.
My name is Jordan, my friends call me JJ, and I'm a writer. I grew up in Texas, and moved to Los Angeles in 2012. Up until recently I wrote for The Liverpool Offside, which is where most readers might have followed me from. Writing about Liverpool Football Club was a dream that I didn't know I had until I got stuck into the position. I distinctly told the editor that reached out to me that I was unqualified and he told me, "we all are." And while it only paid beer money, a monthly stipend for two posts a week, the almost four years I spent with that team and on that site was so important to me. It helped me in ways that I couldn't have done myself.
Now it's time for a new start. As cliche as it is, a new chapter. A place of my own, to share Liverpool, but also more. This isn't going to be a lifestyle blog. This isn't going to be a sports blog. It is both of those, and yet not quite those things. This is a place for everything - for Liverpool, for life, and for some magic. That'll come through fiction, and community, and experience, and hopefully constantly learning about the world around us.
I chose the name "A Red Arrow" for a lot of different reasons. The Red Arrows is another nickname for Liverpool FC. Red is their color and a color of power, strength, and safety -- be it bright and bold, or darker and more subdued. I'm a Sagittarius, the Archer -- that kind of speaks for itself. Arrows are a symbol of progress, always flying forward, getting started by being pulled back. They conjure images of Artemis, Greek goddess of the Hunt. Arrows as their own symbols of strength and determination, of power. Archers as allies to a greater team, but with their own purpose.
Hopefully this is a place of a greater team, a greater community, but also in service of my purpose to keep writing and shape myself as a writer. Keep shaping my voice, sharing what I'm learning, and the life that I'm living. Making some magic here, for all of us.