I sometimes wonder if it’s wrong that I actually like the things I write. All the time I used to hear, “You are your own worst critic.” I don’t really believe this. There are plenty of people out there willing to piss all over anything creative anyone does. So I write what I would like to read. Enough authors I have met have said this to me, but the first was Steven Brust. “I write what I would want to read and hope others dig it as well,” he said. I believe this is a fair enough paraphrase.

Anyway, yesterday I wrote about how it had been over a decade since I’d written a poem. Follow the jump if you want to read the first poem I wrote when I took back up my pen. I still like it. Let me know what you think.

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All the time I get mail addressed to “Dear Christ…” I guess this just means my full name is too long. Every time I see this on Amazon though, it makes me want to log out thinking, No. No I’m not.

I started writing poetry again (after over a decade long break) a little over three years ago. To me the writing has always been the beginning. Once I have a piece done I want to see how far I can take it. Produce spoken word audio. Throw it on a website. Put it together into a chapbook. Hell, even illustrate it (or have it illustrated). But the poem has always just been the start.

It’s also the easiest part of the process for me. I’ve got a backlog of poems with ideas of what to do with them. Getting to this is the rub. I decided to quit writing again partly to make things fresh once again, but mostly to force myself to approach these other projects. All I’ve managed to do, for the most part, is quit writing. Hey, it’s a step, right? Not really. I’ve been bouncing certain ideas around in my head for almost six months now with very little progress.

I guess updating my sites is a start, but not what I really want to get done! I want to put together another collection of my poems. Want to do audio for everything I have done in the last year or so (I eventually want a CD of my spoken word stuff). maybe bitching about it here will make me get off my ass and get some of them finished. I’d be happy to get just one done!

I control quite a few websites. More than can be counted on one hand, but less than could be counted on two. I have a hard time remembering them all. Sure, one’s only my .mac website, and all it has on it are links to my other sites, but it’s still webspace I control and can utilize. A bit back I got tired of one of my sites, decided to take down another for content reasons, and never got a third off the ground. I also signed over the reigns of yet another site (I no longer wanted to maintain or develop), dedicated to a social event, to a friend.

All this just goes towards explaining the redesign of this site. I missed having somewhere to journal. And I have great ideas for this site and all my others. I even have an idea for a new site (a semi-commercial venture). But it will be some time before I get to other sites. I want this one locked down and set up perfectly. It’s getting close, but there is still a lot to do (click the orb in the upper left corner for a list of changes to be made).

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Left to right: Tori (Amos), Erin, and me.

We saw Tori a few months back. This photo was taken back stage at a “meet & greet.” Meeting tori was on Erin’s list of things she wanted to do. Lifetime goals and all that. I think this was her 5th time seeing tori (and my second).

I’m lucky in that I have met nearly every musician or author I’ve cared to meet; Glen Cook (I submitted the photo on his wiki entry), Bob Mould, Steven Brust, The Wedding Present, Mike VanPortfleet, and a slew of other people from working at a radio station and a Borders. I can’t even remember all of them. I’m also lucky in that I have seen nearly every musician live that I care to. Ok, not David Bowie, and not NIN, but pretty much everyone else.

I’m still a music junkie with the motto of “anyone live,” but it has been a while since I’ve been to a concert. I think the last one was Pieta Brown.