Yes. My blog has been suffering from neglect. Sadly, with this post, I will have posted as much in Jan - Feb 2011 as I did all of 2010.
It's not from lack of ideas or inspiration. Or even from lack of time. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I seem to be on bottom-dead-center where my writing is concerned and I can't honestly say there is anything to blame other than myself.
So. Mea culpa. Now what?
Writing one blog post won't do a damn thing to help me get serious about writing again; neither will blogging in general (even if it is good practice). I'm reading plenty, have plenty of creative input and enough free time that I could be plugging away at half a dozen writing projects.
I can say, however, that I haven't been completely useless on the writing front. There are things going in the orbit of my writing that are (slowly) providing me some impetus to get off my fat ass (or should that be 'sit my fat ass down') and write.
• WizardTales, the fantasy fanfiction site I've been part of/on staff of off-and-on since around 2006 has just re-opened it's doors after about a two-year haitus. This time around (third time's the try, right?) we're simplying things a bit and doing things somewhat different. Mostly behind the scenes. Somehow, I've been handed the Red Hat (site admin, for those who don't know MMM parlance). Things are (of course) moving slow, but they are moving. Fanfiction remains a strong inspiration and motivation for me.
• An old friend contacted me early on this year and made me an offer; thusly, I find myself as a member of UK Authors. I haven't been there very long, and the culture and attitude of the people there is vastly different than any other writing community I've been a part of. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet or how I feel about the welcome I've recieved. They don't seem interested in discussing craft as much as they seem to enjoy irritating each other around the boards. The quality of writing is about the same as I've found on other internet forums - some of it is fantastic and some of it is terrible. They have real support and a thriving community of poets there. In all truth, I'm not much of a poet. I've written a few decent ones, but nothing special. And I seem to have lost the knack of it over the years. The jury is still out on UK Authors, bu being there is making me realize how much I need to write.
• the Katheryn story is nearly 16 years old, and for the first time in almost six of those years, the story is starting to make sense. Writing the (first part of the) prequel for NaNoWriMo in 2009 was a good idea. It shook loose some of the cobwebs and helped me see more of what I really wanted the story to be about. Setting it down for over a year was an even better idea, because now that I have some distance, I've started to untangle the knot of issues at the core of the story and started to make some real progress on how I want to write it.
I think I had an idea too ambitious for my skills and I'm only just now really coming into the level of skill and maturity I need to write the story and do it justice. It's taken awhile, but I think I'm finally getting there.
• Forum-based RP has always been something that gets my creative side moving - the same goes for tabletop RP. I'm hoping to make more time for both in the near future. (And, if I can actually keep some momentum, my next post will be about tabletop RP. Someone please hold me to that.)
Hopefully, some of this does something. Because I can honestly say I am not a bad writing. I might even be good.
Recently, a good friend of mine called me up and left me a very serious voicemail.
She had run across an old story of mine that was loosely based on real events, answering the question "what if" about a real scenario. She'd found and read the story when she googled herself (she was in the acknowledgements, because the names had been changed to protect the guily) and thought: "Oh shit. Was I that kind of asshole to him?"
Truth: she wasn't. But the story made it out that way. Sort of. (The narrator was an emo pussy version of myself. He whined a lot and very much had a fatalistic 'life sucks' attitude.)
The story was good enough she was afraid the events were real and she wasn't remembering what happened right. I wrote that story about a decade ago, so obviously - I don't suck if I can write a story well enough that someone who knows better doubted their own recollection of events.
I need to get off bottom-dead-center and write.
If any of my friends out there want to help with that - nag me about writing. Nag me until I'm mad. Ask me about stuff until I have to start writing just so I can make everyone stop nagging me.
Either that, or just keep throwing things at the back of my head until I start writing and stop sitting around saying "I should write."
Otherwise, I will turn into the loser I'm afraid I could be.
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