Oh, my God! What is that...thing? It's disgusting! It's hideous! It's...my blog?!?

Let's see, last post was about...2009? Wow. It's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

I suppose an explanation of some kind is in order.
Simply put, I lost interest in blogging. The joy of sharing my thoughts with the world turned into revulsion. I doubted anyone cared about what I had to say. I doubted I had anything interesting to say. I saw this as a total waste of time and energy. I hated myself for even starting one. So I ignored it, hoping that this embarrassing secret would just crawl off into a dark corner somewhere and die. There were times when I thought, "hey, I could write about that" or "this is worth writing about," but doubt was always there telling me: "no one wants to read this crap!" So out of disgust and self-loathing I ignored my blog as if it carried the plague.

The other day, though, I experienced a kind of reawakening. My older brother and I were hanging out with our friends and playing Arkham Horror. We took a break from fighting the nightmares of H.P. Lovecraft to eat out at Long John Silver's. We climbed into my car and followed our friend's van until I, the driver, made a marvelous navigational error and got ourselves lost. We parked at a McDonald's and, rather than braving the mean streets of Vallejo again, my brother and I agreed to eat there instead.

We talked about our crafts as we ate. Mike wants to make money from drawing pictures, but so far no luck. We discussed ways of improving this situation, such as social networking and having a more active blog. We concluded that in order to get the jobs and the attention, he has to let the world know he exists. I then thought about my own blog, that disgusting creature creeping around my room at night and leaving its droppings for me to step in, and realized it had been a long time since I even looked at it. As we drove home through the rain, something grew in me. It started off small, but grew and grew until it was like a colossal weight in my mind that briefly distracted me from the road.

That something was the desire to write in my blog again.

To quote Stephan Crane:

A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"the fact has not created in me
a sense of obligation."

This blog may just be another drop in the vast ocean of blogs already rolling in the internet, the very act of writing gives me new confidence. Even now as I type this at 1:53 a.m., I feel like I am rediscovering that joy of writing I had found nearly two years ago and it feels good. I just hope that doubt doesn't sink its jagged teeth into me again.

So, time for a new mission statement.

From now on I promise to do my best to write as often as I can in this blog; I promise to see this as a tool to enhance my craft as a writer rather than a waste of time and space; and finally, I promise to not doubt myself and to write whatever is on my mind as long as I keep it tasteful and does not provoke anyone to track me down and shoot me. That would be bad.