Learning from MANHATTAN.

Condolences.

State of relationship.

Challenge me.

Thank you, Zombie Sitcom.

I know I've got a bad reputation, and it isn't just talk talk talk ...

Stephen's in bed, and I'd not blogged in a while. I feel like I've barely written anything in a while. I've been so consumed with my webcam and making quality videos everytime I sit here at the computer - which now resides in this cute alcove in the corner of my bedroom with its own tray, lamp and photogenic bookshelves - that I forgot that the main reason I bought the computer, created the alcove and live my day-to-day existence is because I want to write. I'm good at it. I should do it more often.

(See how weak that previous paragraph is? That's how much I'm out of practice.)

So maybe I'll just take a photo of myself with the webcam everytime I sit down to write, and that'll get me out of the habit of strictly using this computer for webcamming (badly) and Facebook games.

Maybe I should revert to HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE for further inspiration, for I got a lot of good essays out of that - some of which may be published elsewhere soon. If I could return to improv a better, saner, easygoing person who was capable of keeping his emotional outbursts onstage and didn't constantly seek approval and trusting relationships, I would use that outlet to become more prolific. For a time, I even sought out details of my family's past in the hope that I would find inspiration to write stories there. In high school, I created a whole town of melodramatic, fictional characters and impossible circumstances, and I escaped into that. (The words came so easily then.) Sometimes I write for an audience, and my writing works out well for that.

So the pattern is that I seek inspiration, then I get so caught up in and obsessed with the inspiration that I forget to use it much to write about it. Or I tire of the inspiration.

But to get to the emotional core of the stories - the ones I feel most, the ones I most enjoy telling, the ones where I manage to mock myself the most - I think I need to trust myself and trust that I already know what I'm doing.

What do I have when I've been stripped of everything outside of myself that I think I need to be able to write? I have myself. And that's enough.

OK, cool. I've psyched myself into giving this writing thing a shot again. It's just me and the screen, the keyboard, the pen, the page. And it's all I need.