(insert sound file of ancient, rusty hinged door slowly, painfully, creaking open, the noise growing in intensity as the seconds pass until it's almost unbearable to hear...at least it stops)

*coughing* is heard, then slow, uncertain footsteps

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?  While I am almost certain not a single soul is going to read this, I'll write as if someone here actually remembers when this blog was kinda, sorta updated on a semi-regular basis, years ago (eleven now, to be exact).

I miss it.  I miss writing and doing something that used to come naturally to me.  All of the standard and insufficient excuses/explanations can be trotted out, but the truth is I just lost touch with myself, or at least this part of myself.  I've explored other parts to good effect, but as I grow older I begin to realize that this is the thing that I can do in life, perhaps better than other things.  This is the thing that, while painful and yes, occasionally boring, can make me sit back afterwards and really feel as if I've accomplished something, that makes me feel as if I've communicated just a bit of "me" to the world and maybe reached out to it and created an echo somewhere.  I don't know for sure; but I hope so.

The world has changed a lot since I last did this.  Now Facebook and Twitter are functioning as kind of "minute blogs" where everyone is able to share photos, stories, thoughts, jokes, etc. about themselves and their daily lives.  The vast majority of it isn't very interesting or original or deep, but then again, that's not what those venues are there for.  They are there to promote clicking and advertising, not to promote deep and reasoned discussion or provide complicated insight into someone's character.

I won't presume that I will (or ever have) do that here, either.  But I hope to; I will try to.  I honestly am not and never have been interested in just doing a daily diary or sharing recipes or love advice.  I have always hoped that my writing could really connect with an audience and make them feel that someone else in the world had felt or thought the way they did, that someone else's experiences somehow were mirrored in their own, and that they would feel less alone and more empowered as a result.

I have a lot of time on my hands right now, and it's terrible to admit that whenever I have less time I seem to automatically abandon something I just said made me feel good and that I was good at.  That's me; I'm often just not a very motivated person.  But I'm always hopeful that one of these times when I start doing this again it will become a habit that I do just as automatically as brushing my teeth or taking my daily medicine.  It's not as simple as that, of course; you don't have to do any creative thinking to brush your teeth, and you don't worry that you aren't taking your medicine in an original way.  But the basic idea is there; do it, just as if you were breathing and at some point (hopefully!) it gets easier and easier and pretty soon you are doing it without even thinking about it or giving yourself time to put it off once again.

So, let's get on with it, shall we?  I don't know how creaky my writing skills are, though I would suspect they are on par with the door I used in my opening metaphor.  I write freelance for an area paper now, and have done so for eight and a half years.  It's basic reporting; city council and school board meetings, the opening of a new shop, maybe covering a visiting politician or summer festival of some kind. It's marginally fun but there's not much imagination required, that's for sure.  I hunger for that kind of wonderful inspiration I used to have as a boy when I watched science fiction television and read fantasy/sci fi books and dreamed of worlds beyond my own.  Truth to tell, like most young authors, I used a lot of elements of those stories but at least they provided me with some kind of groundwork for my flights of fantasy.  Tropes, archetypes and ideas are not infinite but they can and are expressed in infinite ways; there are only so many colors on a palette, but they can create myriad combinations of light, dark and all the spectrums in between.

Wish me luck, Internet.  I sure hope I'm up to this challenge.  I've got a wonderful lady friend now who encourages my creativity and knows there is more to me than meets the eye (and more than I allow the world to see).  She's my rudder in rough seas and has kept me from crashing on the rocks more than once.   But in the end, it's up to me to "be" me and do the things I need to do to feel fulfilled and useful and whole.

And here goes another attempt to do so.