The well is dry

What the hell is up with me, lately?

I'm trying to own my current bout of creative malaise. I'm trying to investigate why I feel so tired and uninspired lately. Why I've stopped writing. Why I feel like I have nothing to offer.

It's weird. I don't know how to answer these questions.

I'm not depressed or sad or anything. In fact, outside of my creative life, things have been better than ever. I love my wife, our house, my family and, well, I've had worse joe-jobs.

I'm a little frustrated about my lack of progress in my creative/producing endeavors as of late. And more than a little nostalgic for days of yore. By end of August in 2006, I had completed 2 acting gigs, 2 directing gigs, received 2 grants, a reading for my play and had the rest of the year and my next season already mapped out. In 2009, I've done one acting gig and received one grant... and very little sits on the horizon.

Eeyuck. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be stuck in the past. I hate thinking about that shit, and I'm sorry that I wrote it down.

But I'm trying to own it. So there it sits in my post.

My biggest concern right now is that I feel locked in by a number of factors. Yes, my joe-job is not terrible--but it's not good either. It pays well, it's stupid easy, but it has nothing to do with what I want to be doing with my life and will not lead me there. At the same time, I have more responsibilities than I did in my twenties (family, mortgage, etc.), and I can't just quit and hope that something better comes along. I'm not sure if there is something better: we all know that artists need supplementary income. Do I want to go back to waiting tables? Hell no. Do I want to teach? No -- that's not a secondary job, that's another career entirely. I don't know what I want to do.

I also feel locked in by my artistic choices. I feel like whenever things get rocky, I drop everything and move on to something new. Which is irresponsible and wasteful. I want to follow through. But at the same time, I'm spinning my wheels on this current thing. WTF am I supposed to do? I'm afraid if I try break my bad habit, I'm going stay stuck in the same creative void for even longer. Another year? Two?

Sigh.

Before starting this post, I checked out my very first post on this blog, and two things caught my eye. I wrote,

Another word about this blog. About 2 or 3 years ago, my good buddy Shaun told me that all he wants to do is wander the earth and spread righteousness. I'm gonna try to emulate that here.

And then I quoted from my superhero play:

"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who might imagine a whole other, fantastic reality from the world we know… and those who participate in that reality."
-- Shady Character (Episode 2)

What happened to that guy?