Why am I avoiding writing?

I have done some writing in the last little while but nothing that I can truly say was a 'good effort' and to tell you the truth I'm not totally sure why that is.
I know with what I've recently come into, being a single father and all, I have been under a decent amount of stress to not warrant wanting to write.  At the same time though I've always enjoyed writing I just don't have the motivation to keep a steady pace of it up.
I have the internet now so its not like I can't get onto my Writing Workshop on Gaia and pick the string back up where I left it.  I know I'm always welcome back there and that the would be more than ecstatic to have me back for the writing and crit abilities and my Moderator position.

So why am I avoiding it?
I can blame it on writers block but truthfully I don't feel blocked.  I don't feel that my imagination has been properly exercised in a little while and that I may be a bit rusty as far as Free Fall Writing goes.  I don't have the drive or the motivation to keep myself going at it.  I love writing and I know that I'm good at it, I know that I can be tons better if I kept it up and kept working at what I am doing and what I am able to create.

Why am I not motivated to write?
A good question that I don't really know if I know the answer to.  Maybe I'm afraid of actually accomplishing something.
Then what?
So I accomplish something and then I have to follow it up with accomplishing something else and then something after that.  It's like walking, once you start you really can't stop it, you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually you end up somewhere in the world.

Am I justified in being scared to write?
No.  Simply no.
I have talent, I have ability, I have the imagination and the creativity to create.
I don't use it because I am scared to be good, one of the best perhaps, at something.  That I will be a standard that other people are measured against.

Is that something to be scared of?
It's not.  I shouldn't be scared or afraid to be good.  I shouldn't shy away from sharing what I can and know I can do with other people in the world.
This is going to be an obstacle for me, I know it is and I'm going to have to remind my self on a regular, perhaps daily basis, that I can do this and that I can make myself wonderful in the world of writers and authors.

Peace,

ClX

A few days away

I've been gone for a few days.  The process of moving, the setting up a new apartment, the transitioning of life from being married to being single.  It's actually quite a process that I took for granted on several levels before I had to do it entirely on my own.

Have I written anything in the last few days that I've been away?
Kinda.
I've done a little writing here and there.  There was something that I just did that I think is going to be a tremendous push for myself and the new life that I am involved in.  I've created a second blog Diary of a Single Father, I'll post the link for it over in the side column.  The idea behind the second blog is to explore the life that a single father leads.  If I am able to I want to push the boundaries of what a single parent actually is by going into depth on the blog, finding similarities and differences between single fathers and single mothers, what they are going through and the things they fear and face.

Why am I doing a blog about being a single father?
There are a number of reasons.  For me the one the keeps coming up is that there is not enough information about being a single father.
You come across stuff about being a single parent, in the end that single parent, in most texts, turns out to be a single mother, the single father being a foot note as something that happens also but is a rare occurrence (like the Toxic Avenger).  I want to push something out into the world (a man baby) that someone that identifies with me can come along, find, read and say that sounds a lot (or a bit) like me and I think that I can take what he's saying/writing and use it in my life.

I'm going to keep this blog going as well, as identified before this is dealing with the writing side of my life so there is going to be some cross-over with this and my other blog since...well I have to write the other blog, as well as continue working on my short stories and other aspects of writing.

There is more re-working that I have to do with this blog still.  I'm not happy with how the layout was left, so I'm going to need to figure out exactly what I'm doing with it and get it done.  Thankfully I have some vacation coming up in the next week so I can sit and really ponder what I'm trying to make this blog look like, and come up with some visual ideas for my second blog as well.

Take a moment to check out my second blog over on the side, I've only got the opening post up but I think it's a good start.

Peace,

ClX

To a Halt

For the moment a lot of stuff I've been working on has ground to a halt largely due to the fact that I'm very close to moving.  With a little luck I should be able to get the keys today from the property manager and then I can start moving my stuff in.  I don't intend to get it all moved in immediately, it's going to be a few days at least before its all good to go.
With that said I do feel bad that I've not actually written anything as far as creative writing goes and even for the last few days neglected the blog.  I'm at a stance where I feel that everyday I should be doing one or the other.  With the recent lack of writing on my part I've let a lot of time pass with no action in the Gaia writing group I'm part of and as a Moderator of the group I'm beginning to feel like, at the moment, I'm mostly just there for the title, which is not the actual case.
Re-prioritizing my life after the move is going to be the first thing that I do and none to soon, I really want to look at redirecting myself back into creative practices, that's where I've always excelled and the more I push myself in that regard I find the more I am able to expand on what I do at work and in other areas of my life.  I'm also very intent on getting my little guy to open up creatively as well, I've noticed sparks in him here and there with his imagination and I want him to let that out.  He's already shown that he's above where he needs to be for reading, now I want him to start taking steps in other directions, find things that he really loves doing and then let that aspect run wild.

Not much of an update I know, that's how it is at this point, just keeping lines out here and there so that the world doesn't think that I've dematerialized.

Peace,

ClX

The changes so far

At this point I'm still working on the changes for the blog.  As you can see the title of the blog has changed as well as the background.
With the background I'm still not totally happy, I feel it's closer to what I want but that its still not there yet so I'm still going to be working on it and along with that the rest of the windows as I'm unsure how I want them to look in the end.
I'm very happy with the title it has several meanings, it can be taken literally...my life In words...meaning my life as I write it.  It can be taken as...my life In words...meaning my life inside the words I write (oh yea that's deep).  It can also be taken as...my life In words...meaning my inward journey through writing (even deeper, oh yea).  Multiple meanings all interconnected and holistic in the end, I like it.

Speaking of Holistic I've started reading the second Dirk Gently novel from Douglas Adams and currently I'm on the fence about it.  I'm only 5 chapters in so still not very deep into it, though its not a long book so 5 chapters really is more significant than it seems.  I loved the first book 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' was very clever and interesting and very enjoyable.  This one I'm not so sure about.  I'll continue reading it and have no doubt that I'll finish it, that's not the problem its not unreadable at all.  I think what the difference is here is that in this one Dirk is his own character, he is the focus character and you get his internal dialogue and thoughts, something that was missing from the last one, he was not the lead character though he was the character that did all the leading in the end he was primarily the guy who did all the solving but you never learned anything deeper about him other than what the main characters knew about him before he named himself Dirk Gently.
I want to like this book more than I do at this point but maybe as I get deeper into the book I'll change my mind about it.

Something I find I'm starting to pick up while working on this blog is CSS script.  With the use of Firebug I'm becoming more and more used to looking at and deciphering CSS Script.  I knew HTML pretty good back in highschool and used it to design web pages on various sites and though HTML is still practical to a small degree it's becoming less and less advantageous though still usefull simply by the fact that it helps you work out some of what you are seeing when you look at CSS code that blogger/blog spot templates use.  Nothing wrong with picking up a new language, a new computer language...lol...hrm I may have to get that looked into.

Peace,

ClX

Blog Re-imagined

I've been doing a little thinking over the last couple of days, aside from the revamp look of my blog, which may change even further depending on how I feel about what I'm thinking, but a good blog should have a running theme or at least an overall idea linking it together.
Currently my blog is a random series of thoughts and stores with no real theme running behind the background other than my life, which is actually a pretty broad topic.  It does work for some people but they focus on distilling a certain aspect out of it all, like Angry John Seller (link on the side) puts up interesting and sometimes random stuff but in the end he still has something to be angry about.

I've decided I need to distill my blog down to something further, something smaller than just my life but not so small that it runs out of steam and interest, doesn't mean there won't still be chance encounters of random life topics or aspect incorporated into it sometimes and I have no intention or re-restarting by blog, I'll just alter and re-imagine (the new trendster word for redo or remake) from here forward.
I have the rest of today off so I'll see what if I like the changes and alterations that I come up with enough to put them into effect.  If not then I guess the blog stays as is and that's that.

Peace,

ClX

The Occult

I've discovered I'm an occult fanatic.  Not fanatic in that I spend my every waking hour and minute digging up information and memorizing it, more along the lines of I'm a big sucker for it.  Now don't get me wrong I don't call those phone psychics and ask them about my future, most of them have phony accents anyway, I'm talking more along the lines of a large part of the material that I read.
Two of the main comics (or graphic novels for you mainstreamers) that I read are Hellboy and Hellblazer.  Now aside from the names which indicate devil worship (I'm on to you Church of Latter Day Saints) there is a lot of occult and magic involved in them.  This is also something that is present in a lot of the novels that I read which circle around sci-fi and fantasy.  I've also been getting into more real world applications of occult like Astral Projection and Remote Viewing.

Why does this interest me?
I think its the mystery of the unknown, the fact that you are unsure of what will be there when you get to the other side of what you're looking at.  There is so much we really don't know about our world and the universe that these are steps that show us that its not all about just getting up everyday and going to work, there are larger forces at work that we can tap into and take a ride on.
Some of these things can't be denied.  The writings in Hellblazer and Hellboy have basis on current research and on past legends, stories that have been handed down for generations and generations, stories that shaped our ancestors back to the early days of the earth.  If stories have held since then, obviously taking new shapes with each generation that gets it, there has to be something we find magical in the story to keep it going, there has to be something other worldly in order to want us to tell it to someone else.
The legends of old are mostly shaped out of 'misunderstanding'.  An old woman might have been a base psychic and finds she is able to help people with her abilities by giving them advice.  She becomes labelled a witch but through generations of stories she is given a name and becomes the Baba Yaga.  That's how these things work.  Misunderstandings of the past create the reasong to research other worldly powers for future generations, to corroborate or disprove these things.

As it goes we're finding more and more that there are deep truths to these 'strange' stories and that people really are far more powerful, within themselves, than has ever been realized before.

Peace,

ClX

Matters of Interest

The last few days have been something of an interest.
First I got a chance to watch the other 2 movies that I had picked up the other day, School of Rock doesn't count cause I've seen it before and knew it was good.  Forbidden Kingdom and Appaloosa.
Both were a let down.  Forbidden Kingdom I had expectations for going into it since it had Jackie Chan and Jet Li, I was very very disappointed in the overall movie and what it turned out to be.  Too much was trying to be accomplished and it never really got off the ground and got me involved in it.
Appaloosa I was led to believe, by the back cover, that it was a good ol' gun fighting movie, like the Sharon Stone version of Quick and the Dead (fantastic movie!), I was wrong on a number of different levels.  The only really cool character in the movie was the sidekick played by Viggo Mortenson (spelled wrong I'm sure).  Renee Zellwegger was a pain in the ass and a total distraction that you could see coming a mile away, useless on every level.  Ed Harris played his part well when Renee Z wasn't around.  The other bit characters were good and I liked Jeremy Irons as the bad guy, they didn't let the stand off between Ed Harris and Jeremy Irons develop far enough and the ending was about as anti-climactic as a movie can get.  It had a few food spots but it wasn't a bullet driven western, or even a story driven western.

I've been asked to design a logo for a fish company on the East Coast.  It was something that came up this afternoon at work, one of the guys I work with is leaving to go back to a position in the offices of a new fishery company out on the East Coast and was trying to design a logo in Word.  After he found out I had Photoshop experience he asked me to come up with something and if the company likes it he'll see if I can get paid for it.
I'm not expecting anything, it does give me an excuse to really get into the workings of Gimp.  I've sworn off Photoshop since its a gigantic system hog.

Lastly I've done some developing of a character I founded a little while ago and stuck into a script I wrote for the April Script Frenzy challenge.  I finished the script, was only happy with the last half of it.  I'd been rolling around how to edit it and tighten it up immensely and I think I have the idea for it.  If it looks like its going to work out well then I might be able to look at turning it into a comic book, which is would no end of cool, in my opinion.

S'all for now.

Peace,

ClX