The 'Nation returns!

So let's see if I can calculate this... My guess is that it's been about a year since I maintained a blog. Hell, it might even be longer than that. I became sort-of bored with the whole blog thing. For those keeping score, I've started (and ended) about five separate blogs in the last few years. They served different purposes, functioned on various levels: the first was something of a lark (it was a continuing series of fake correspondence that I dubbed "Letter to Harry" that was linked from a "vanity" site I started for my freelance business), but then I began to fully embrace the whole idea of blog writing. I figured it was a good outlet for my writing, a means to maintain my creative writing chops. Then real life interfered, and I began a blog that chronicled the difficult and emotional break-up of my long-term relationship. Then I just ... well, dropped off the blog radar, for a number of reasons. For one, I felt totally bereft of ideas. In fact, I sort-of stopped writing altogether. It wasn't writer's block, more like writer's apathy. Work was also taxing my mental and intellectual energies, to the extent where I didn't feel I had much to offer when the work day is done.

And then I found an even-better reason to stop blogging: I fell in love. As I was telling my friend the other day, contentment doesn't seem to be conducive to creative endeavours, at least for me. Happiness doesn't fuel my creativity in the same way depression and melancholy does! Not that I'm complaining: given the choice, I'd rather live a happy and contented life than one full of melodrama and sadness, even if it's at the expense of producing wonderful, meaningful prose. (Let's face facts: I'm simply not talented enough to be a great artist, so I'd rather be a happy person than a tortured soul. I might feel different if I knew I had great work within me.)

Still, I figured I'd get back to blogging at some point. (There's actually still two other blogs attached to this account that you can view from my profile.) Now that half the year is over, the time seems right. I have no idea what shape or form this will take. I can't promise that it'll be as emotional and soul searching (some might say overbearing) as the original Procrastination Nation - those 40,000-plus words were a pure, cathartic pleasure to write - but I'll do my best to make it somewhat interesting. I may write about books I'm reading, films I'm viewing, general observations about life. Hell, it might be boring and not have a reader outside of myself, but that's ok. In the end, I'm probably doing this more for myself.

And happy Canada Day! (I had actually intended to have my first post about my sometimes-ambivalent feelings about being a Canadian, about my desire to experience living outside of this country, and how much I hate fireworks, but I'll save it. I do need some material over the next few months, after all...)