I love to write.  I sometimes feel like that’s what I was put on this earth to do, despite how lame that sounds.  I’m currently engaged in four different writing projects, each of which pulls from a different portion of my creative center:

“The Draconia Chronicles”
A web comic that I write for, this has been a labour of love for over five years.  It’s an epic tale of an ages-old war between anthropomorphic tigers and dragons.  It doesn’t appeal to everyone, but we have a solid and diverse following.  Most of what I pour into this project comes from my love of creating characters and watching them grow.  I’m a sucker for character-driven stories, and that’s the driving force behind what I do here.  Most times I feel like a scientist working with a petrie dish.  I throw some characters into a tube, toss in some crazy situations and watch to see what they do.  It’s probably the closest one can get to playing God without earning a Ph.D.

“Spade”
I happen to work for a Northern Virginia-based indie film company called Darkstone Entertainment part time.  Getting chummy with them at the horror convention called Horrorfind Weekend a few years ago, I’ve become rather close to the staff and pop up in a few of their movies and short films.  Currently director John Johnson is filming a web series called “Spade” that allows viewers to vote on where each following episode goes.  I currently write the paragraph-long descriptions for each episode, and they end up getting published in the local paper.  This project has to be the easiest one to work on, but it’s also the most fun.  The content is already supplied to me with each episode’s script that’s sent to me.  All I have to do is pull out the two or three major point, summarize them in a playful and clever manner, and viola!

Spwug
My first foray into writing articles for a webizine/blog site.  I’ve been writing for this site for over two years now and was appointed head writer last year.  Spwug is a site (with its own print mag on the west coast!) that focuses on geek culture – be it movies, television, food, toys, games, comics, etc.  I find that the site’s emphasis creates a structure that isn’t too difficult to write for.  Does a subject interest me in the geek centers of my brain?  If so, then let me write that up and post it.

My CHUD Blog
This brings me to my latest addition to my pantheon of textual pursuits.  After being an avid reader and fan for about ten years, and a Chewer in the forums for over two years, I finally threw my hat into the ring and got me my very own CHUD Blog.  Currently up to my eighth entry in the series (pay no attention to the mis-numbered, second number five behind the curtain), I’ve found that this project allows me more freedom than Spwug.  This blog affords me the chance to speak randomly about whatever fuels my passions at any given moment, while Spwug has me using the nerd-logic centers of my brain to talk about geek culture.

But, with four different avenues to exercise my creative scribble comes four chances to win an outstanding prize pack that includes writer’s block, lack of motivation, self-doubt, and over-high expectations.

And out of the four projects above, my CHUD Blog gets hit the hardest.  With my web comic, I can generally rely on what what has come before and just build on the direction I’m already going.  With “Spade”, again most of the groundwork us supplied for me.  And for Spwug, I just need to find something geeky that I like and write about it.

But the freedom the CHUD Blog gives me… it’s a blessing and a curse.  When lack of motivation hits me or a severe case of “I have no clue what to write about”, I’m practically stuck.  The area of possibility is just too wide to fathom, and I find myself overwhelmed by the abyss of over-variety.

That kind of brings me to this week’s episode of “From Dusk ‘Til Don”.  I spent the last couple of days wracking my brain, trying to come up with something to write.  Unfortunately, nothing was grabbing me, inspiring me, or fanning my passions.  I’ve almost literally remained a blank slate this whole time, watching my fingers clumsily pound the keys of my laptop as a chronicle my lack of inspiration.

Suddenly I’ve realized that I just executed a not uncommon movie and television cliche – when the writer doesn’t know what to write about or present, he simply writes or presents that very dilemma as his finished piece.

This is exactly what I have just done.  Now I must set fire to my clothes and my laptop, scrub myself raw, and exile myself to a small town in one of the Dakotas.

And hope to Cthulhu that I don’t have to rely on this trick again next week.