A Return to Format

I’ve been away from this blog for so long I’ve forgotten what its purpose was, if it ever had a purpose. I’ve used it for political rants (I apologize for all of that, I’m better and saner now), self-promotion, idiotic challenges, fighting what I considered important battles, and various other fuckery). If you go back far enough you’ll even find that, at some point, I treasured story over everything, even basic editing. (Again, sorry about that). I’ve had a recent internet coming-of-age, so to speak. This isn’t some new-age bullshit. I simply realized that very little of this virtual reality is real and there are things in life better than likes and hearts and social acceptance, which is a drug, and I am nothing if not a life-long addict. So I wanted to get back to my roots and blog for a bit. We’ll play it by ear and see where it goes.

I’m sitting here now, listening to the under-appreciated Counting Crows album “Hard Candy” and wondering where everything went wrong. I suppose I could blame the 2016 election, as everyone else is doing, but that’s not the case. I’m little affected by politics, and can only blame myself for whatever pit of radical madness I might have fallen into. I still feel strongly that the wrong people are currently in charge, but other than voting, I have no say in the matter. What I do have a say in is my mood, and I’m much happier when I don’t think about how bad things are getting. I think that’s the last I’ll say about politics, simply because it’s not a pleasant subject, and I feel most of us are tired of the bullshit at this point.

So where did things go sideways? It likely occurred when I started seeing a modicum of success and came to believe that what I said mattered outside of my books. It’s an odd thing I’ve had to deal with several times in my life. I make it to a certain level of success and self destruct. I become manic, and the downward spiral is always worse than any upward momentum I can manage. Ego plays a big role in my existence. I have to keep my self esteem high or else I start listening to (and believing) those people who do not have my best interests in mind.

Leaving Facebook was probably the best decision of my career, but it wasn’t the only hurdle I had to overcome. I also had to understand that self deprecation (negatively reviewing my own work, and the like) did more harm than good. I didn’t think I deserved any praise for my early work, which I know seems odd considering I just said how big a role ego plays in my life, but that’s just it, the negativity was a safety precaution to combat the positive reception to my work. Of course I didn’t deserve the praise, because if I did, I’d start believing that I was somehow more important than everyone else, and I couldn’t let that happen. What I didn’t realize was that people were listening, and very few appreciated my shitty takes on books they enjoyed, whether or not I was the one who had written them. If you’re one of those people, I’m sorry. That was a dick move on my part.

An even bigger problem was my activity on Goodreads. It sounds funny saying this, me being an adult and all, but I fell in with the wrong crowd, a crowd that eventually turned on me for doing exactly what they were known to do: attacking authors who responded to my negative reviews of their work. Best thing that ever happened to me (and my career) was being blocked by someone I considered a good friend. Thank you, (you know who you are), your hypocrisy was eye opening, and I will be forever grateful for knowing you, if for no other reason than how our friendship ended.

So, in summation, this is a return to form, or format, if you will, and I plan to update this blog as much as possible to document my new journey, where I’ll try to accept myself more and just be happy. If you’re eading this, especially if you’ve somehow managed to remain subscribed to the blog, thanks for sticking with me through the poor mental health.

E.