It's been a difficult day. After an early start, I ate a large meal at my once a weekend breakfast place, washed it down with a tall mocha, and prepared myself to write. I failed. Yesterday was as bad. At first, I thought I had grown weary of my story, unable to bear thinking about it. I thought revising or writing another story would be the key:

Moving on. Jumping out of the rut by changing lanes, directions, and if the wind is right, altitude. So much to say with such little time to say it, it seems a waste not to get dirty--or, put less cliched and direct, to dwell on a story going no where. These fragments will still exist somewhere--who cares if it takes me another year to rediscover them?

Writing this paragraph was all I wrote until now. I spent the rest of the day moping around, searching for distractions. I started the dya thinking: "those who can't write, redesign their websites" (which I stole from Chuck who stole it from someone else). I spent sometime thinking about a redesign, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

When Doolies arrived (and she was early, finishing her sports physicals for college students early enough to catch an earlier flight--get the idea with the earliness?), I was terribly depressed, confused, and unnaturally confounded. I drove to the airport late, unable to read properly the flight schedule, and after circling the baggage claim area for twenty minutes, Doolies had to call me to flag me down; she was in the car rental place, and I must have passed her three times without noticing.

After we drove back to the Castle, I began to feel a bit better. We identified the source of my depression at dinner: lack of video games. Today is the first day I've had nothing to do since going cold turkey. I spent the entire week working or watching movies, or generally keeping busy. But after waking up this morning, my day was filled with nothingness. I didn't realize it at the time, but since I escaped work early yesterday, I spent the last day and a half moping around, attempting to figure out why it was I wasn't writing.

I used to think that depression was the great impetus for writing. Emotion flows most smoothly during sadness, and sometimes depression can masquerade as sadness. But this depression, brought upon by the cold hands of addiciton, is not conducive to writing. Until I realized that it was not my inspiration that was faltering but my emotional state, I was becoming even more depressed. After figuring this out during dinner, I'm feeling much better now. Well enough, I am hoping, to get back to the grind and pour out more words tomorrow.

I've thrown down a bunch of story ideas I can't wait to get cracking on after I finish my current story. I did get a bit stuck. I figure I have about half of it written, and to call this a complete first draft, I need to write another quarter of it. I know, head down into the wind, and get it over with. That's the plan.

I do miss video games. I won't go back (however much the temptress tempts). These depressions are not worth revisiting.