I needed the week.

Woke up from a couple hours sleep, realized I should really get back to this.

Yeah. A whole week not blogging is not great coming from the guy who gave the big speech about getting back into it. Baby steps? No real excuse.

There's also no good way to say that some things just came down the pipe on me, and I think I was more than a little exhausted from all the paying work, so the past several days have just been days which I haven't wanted to write, and when I tried [I had a really good angle on one of those essays, I thought], it really didn't come. And that's... just what happens. We have dry periods.

It's really fashionable with nearly all the writers I know to write no matter what's going on with them - whether they have writer's block, or don't, whether they're dealing with emotional shit or not. Some quote about how you find you won't be able to tell what you wrote when you forced it, as opposed to when it comes naturally gets passed around on Twitter more than chlamydia on college campuses, and it's probably valid but it's just not how I work. Maybe, if that's actually true, one day.

But until then.

Right now it's more about just getting back on track. I felt like I was on a tear before my grandmother went into the hospital, and since then I just haven't been as productive. I had a plan then, actually a couple. Getting back to "The Tagalong" should be priority one, but I've been looking a lot at my outline for "Cherry Stone" when I wake up every morning. It's probably just because that moleskin is easier to pull into bed than my laptop, but still. There's no reason I can't work on both. I just need to get motivated again.

Haven't heard from Ander, but again, I haven't really been talking to many people this past week. No link this post, his website is private at the moment, probably an indication he's shaking some things up again, as I'm sure he has a ton of new pieces to post from working with Eric. So no word on "VHS Generation" - though, honestly, he might be waiting to hear from me. I spoke to Justin the other day, he and his wife Staci had some amazing work in a gallery in Huntington, and I went to that [ran into Kyle too - always good to see him, he seems well]. Justin is currently doing some drawing for other projects, but he's also picked up the comic [Re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name] again, and things seem to be progressing. He also gave me something of his, a rough outline for a project he's been talking about doing for as long as we've been working together, and I'm going to take a look at it for him.

I have spent entirely too much money on myself the past few days - mostly what you'd expect from me, books and the like, but I also picked up a new tie, as my woven ones seem a little lowbrow for the wedding coming up, and also a new pair of shoes, not for the wedding, but more because my current pair are awful to walk in, and I'm trying to get a little more active. A lot of my best inspiration came while on long walks, and even though it didn't improve my physique, I felt a great deal healthier when I actually got out, moved around a little more.

The "big" purchase [the shoes cost more...ugh] was me biting the bullet and getting a webcam. I passed on it as an option when I bought this laptop originally, because it saved me somewhere in the era of eighty bucks which I could then put towards processing power. In retrospect, even with the few problems I've had with this machine, I've been wishing I wouldn't have went as budget as I did, and want to start buying a few items that will supplement it, make up for the shortcomings I've mostly just been working around, and one of those things was a web camera. I Skype with enough people that it's probably not the worst investment, and there are some projects I'm thinking about trying my hand at Kickstarter to fund - mind you, that last thing is more hypothetical at moment, but not having the camera, not being able to make a video and say "Hey, I'm Randall, and I'm working on this..." has been one of those little stopping points in my head that I just don't need there anymore.

Anything else that comes out of this is cake - I might even try video blogging. I'm not sure about that one, it was just suggested [suggested in a way that implied that video blogs are stupid, and just the fear that mine might be stupid was no reason not to try it, but still, suggested], though I never could stand the sound of my own voice played back to me. I feel a little like this is one of those things that I can sense the potential in, but might not be clever enough to tap into.

So I don't know. You ever have a time in your life where the things that come naturally suddenly seem hard? Where stuff you want to do, really want to do, feels like a chore? I have these moments. Like there's a barrier - a membrane, cutting me off from what I want to do, an obstacle that I need to push past, to break through. Which is possible, but not easy, and takes an effort great enough that I'm not always sure I can keep the momentum up once I can get through. Doubt. Doubt fucks with everything.

That's kind of topical if you know it.