So it has been a strange couple of years. I had not intended or expected to abandon this blog when the Covid pandemic started, but it happened. When the whole world hit pause on life as we knew it, my sense of needing to create things paused as well. I stopped writing. I stopped editing. I stopped taking my camera out on walks for nature photography. (Granted, travel was not advised in the early months of Covid and therefore, day trips were not an option, but I’m still surrounded by a respectable amount of wild property at home. Lack of travel opportunities is not a good excuse for me on the photography front.)

My previous blog post on Cognitive Dissonance vs Mental Stability had been spurred by tensions among my Twitter community which had been going on at that time. Things there eventually came to a climax with hurt feelings on many sides and a breakdown in group cohesion. We had had common goals, and with the shattering of trust and friendships, it became daunting to take up the old projects or start new ones among the friends still standing with each other. All of us seemed to take a break from creativity for a while. Sometimes lack of motivation can be contagious in a way. If your peers or support group lose interest in pursuing creative expressions, you can lose some of your inspiration for pursuits of your own.

Then, while many people started binge-watching shows they had not had time for prior to Covid, I decided to get deeper into PC gaming, not only playing a select few games but also watching others play those games as well. For me, Covid became a massive time-suck of being stuck at home with no access to many of my normal motivators.

Of course, my time wasn’t completely devoid of all creative endeavors. Like everyone else in the multiple education fields out there, my students could no longer come to me. This changed my working conditions, and under new management, I was allowed to take up projects which had not been conceivable under the previous management. Over the past two years, my work duties have come to encompass filming, video editing and production of materials usually covered during in-person classes by myself and several of my coworkers. I’ve also gotten to design, illustrate, and build mobile educational displays. These things have offered me enough of a creative outlet that the sense of urgency I always felt prior to these past two years all but disappeared.

Now that life is returning to some semblance of normalcy, it is also time to return to my creative pursuits. One of my goals at the beginning of this year was to look into self-publishing instead of continuing to try and write “marketable” fiction (marketable according to the definitions of the traditional publishing industry). I know there will be a great deal of editing ahead of me in that regard. Along the journey toward querying, I know I lost some of my personal writer’s voice during my previous rounds of editing and rewrites. It’s time to correct that. It’s time to finish drafts of some other projects and to start drafting those which have been sitting on the back burner for years. It’s time to bring my characters and settings to life again.

And it’s also time to bring this blog back to life. Parts of it will once again focus on encouraging others in their own creative endeavors. Other parts will be marked with politics, philosophy, and the events of the world, just as it always has been. And who knows, maybe there will be some surprises along the way as well. I’ve had several friends who have asked me to return to blogging over the past year or more. And I offer them my thanks in supporting my blogging. But I also am thankful for the encouragement I am getting now in real life/outside of my online community. Sharing my public personal life with someone from my public professional life was not a decision I took lightly, but if it results in better communication and project results in both my work life and my personal life, then it will be a good thing. If we both end up with a better work-life balance, then may the benefits multiply exponentially and reach far beyond us.

Wishing all of my readers a welcome back and best of luck in your own creative endeavors!

Hezzie