As I’ve lamented here previously, I no longer blog with the frequency I did back in my LiveJournal days. Not even close. Depending on your appetite for my nonsense, that could be a good or bad thing.

In general, I simply don’t just write for the sake of writing anymore either. When I was a young lad, I’d sit at a coffee shop every night for hours on end with nothing but a pack of cigarettes, a bottomless cup of sludgy coffee and a binder full of ruled, loose-leaf paper awaiting the inevitable scribbles from my tightly held pen. Back then, I wrote because I had to. Because something inside of me (likely hormonal rage or teen angst or something) had to be forced out, and for me, writing was the best outlet (so was music, but that’s a different subject altogether, though they are obviously connected).

What started as mostly poetry and short stories led to more journalistic-style work. I started a ‘zine, for which I wrote most of the content. Once the internet became widely used (but before it overtook our lives), I moved away from the creative writing altogether (save for the stray play or song) and expanded the reporting to the web. That self-made experience writing and editing articles eventually turned into freelance writing gigs, and combined with the web experience (and finally, a formal college education), a professional career alternately editing and writing for a variety of publications and websites.

Sounds like the ideal path, right? I mean, I started out doing something I was just good at, and it turned into a lucrative (mostly) career. So what’s the problem? Now when I write, I do it because I have to. Because an editor assigns a story. Because a paycheck is on its way. Because a client’s needs must be fulfilled. So at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is … write. Oh, Catch-22, you devil’s plaything, you.

See, when I had to write, when it was my “out,” my escape from whatever shitty job I was working or emotionally crippling personal experience I was enduring, the words came easily. And they were a joy. I delighted in assembling nouns, verbs, modifiers and punctuation into a perfect storm of mostly cohesive thoughts and concepts. Now? Now I fret over word counts, deadlines, maintaining appearances, networking, publicizing …

And so here we are. You and me. Writer to reader. Only, I haven’t been giving you much to read. And I haven’t been giving myself much to write. And I’ve been immensely restrictive with what I post here, when in truth, I should be more transparent, more spontaneous, more direct. I’ve become so concerned with professional appearances and image that I’ve painted myself into a corner in which creative expression is so regimented and polished it becomes nearly void of life.

And brother, that ain’t no way of living.

So yes, you’ll still see me pimping my various endeavors here — the band, the comics, the articles and the appearances — but you’re also going to start getting behind the curtain, inside the process and, for better or worse, beyond the surface. And I’m going to try, like mad, to update this here blog/site/whatever daily. Yes, daily. Because otherwise, what’s the point?

I hope you stick around.