Who is that Stranger?

This may be where I appear in a puff of smoke, hacking and coughing because some of it got up into my lungs and all that. But appear I shall!

Some of you must really have been wondering what had happened to me. If I have any followers who don't also follow me on Twitter or Facebook (or even on Game Informer, where I have still been posting some blogs that you should read if you want a laugh), you probably were wondering if some giant chasm opened up in the Earth and swallowed me whole.

(Thanks to Laughing Squid)

Actually, that did happen, except that I managed to avoid it by using my super powers.

But I digress.

I've written quite a bit over the last six months before my final post on January 22 (has it been that long?) about getting into writing funks, wondering whether I had the determination and will to keep going on this blog. The desire to write blog posts and come up with interesting topics was just eluding me. It was starting to feel forced, and more and more it became a place to post my book reviews and latest podcasts and that's it. Pretty boring if you're not interested in either of those. I would come back raring to go for a brief period of time, and then the desire would leave again.

Finally, after going through the motions in January, I just stopped. Is it ironic that this came shortly after my "I'm feeling newly invigorated!" post that I did on January 2? I think it is.

Anyway, things have continued on in the life of Dave, even if I haven't been sharing it here.

The short story writing class that I mentioned in my New Year's post actually did happen. Eight weeks and we wrote a lot! I really enjoyed it. Had some great classmates (though I'm a bit disappointed that nobody seemed to connect outside of class, or at least not with me). We had a great time sharing our writing with each other, giving us some wonderful critiques and I produced a couple of short stories that I may do something with some day. The class was taught by Alison Acheson, and she was a wonderful instructor. She gave us very good feedback, writing tips, as well as the inspiration to keep writing.

I really do want to keep the wheel rolling, and while I haven't written as much as I would have liked since the course ended, the inspiration is still there. I wanted to join a writer's group and keep going. I'm not sure I'm ready for a critiquing group yet, or at least one that meets every couple of weeks. Maybe after the NHL play-offs are over and I have more evenings free. I did, however, join a writers group called The Vancouver Independent Writer Group that I found on Meetup.com. I've been to two of their gatherings now, where we go to a coffee shop (at least the two I've been to, though I know at least one of the previous ones was sushi) and just talk. Mostly about writing, but just anything really. I'd talk more about it, but why rob myself of a blog topic possibility?

The same goes for Meetup.com, a great site that I will blog about later.

We have also had five podcast episodes posted since I stopped writing here. You can find the link to all of them here. And if you bookmark that page, you can always find them.

So yes, I am alive. I am active. I've just been in a funk, the worst one I've had in a while. I haven't even been reading blogs (other than political/news blogs), so I'm way behind on my friends' blogs like Healing Morning. I will read the backlog that I've missed, Dawnie! I promise.

I've decided to use this week I'm taking off (only needing three vacation days to get Wednesday-Tuesday off because of the Easter holiday...WIN!) to start up this blog again. I may add a new template to really make it new, but not sure if I'm in the mood for *that* much work. I am back, though, at least for the time being. I don't want to unduly stress myself by making promises I might not be able to keep, so I'm not going to say this is permanent. I hope it is. I truly want it to be.

Finally, before I close out, I wanted to send a shout-out and thank you to Raquel, an old friend. She's going through a tough time right now, and I reached out to her because of that. In the process of doing that and our conversing about it, she mentioned how much she enjoyed my blog. It's hearing things like that, completely out of the blue and from unexpected sources (as opposed to expected sources, which are also wonderful to hear and well-appreciated, but don't have quite the same impact), that give me inspiration. While I've been mulling over whether to revive the blog or not, it was her saying that which put me over the edge and made me decide to do it this weekend.

So thank you, Raquel.

For now, Dave's mind is buttoned back up, and ready to spill over with bloggy goodness.