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the sky is icy blue today. this morning there was hail for a few minutes, a little clattering of frozen chips as i got out of the car. i stood there staring, disbelieving, at the sticky bits of the sky that clung to my cardigan and hair. but why shouldn’t there be hail in february? it is only in these recent years that this should be a surprising event. this winter has been so warm that i had started to lose my belief in the cold. but here it is, pelting me suddenly, if only for a few minutes.

i stopped writing these entries because my creative energy was flowing elsewhere. and also because, it’s what i do: stopping things. but one ought to continue, oughtn’t they. if only for posterity. so here i am again, though i suspect the flavor of these entries will change somewhat. i put a lot of effort into those previous ones, as is often the case at the beginning of a thing. now, i will have to give whatever i can, which is frankly: less. i am writing a new novel (though how would i write an old one?) and that is where my energy must go until the end is reached. but novel or no, i am determined to set aside some words for this place. we’ll see how far that supposed determination takes me this time around.

one major slower of the wordstream is the fact that i am overcome with a general melancholy and malaise on most days, which reduces my ability to create even these mundane posts. i ever am grappling with ‘the point’. it is troubling to realize again and again that there is no point to anything except those that we sharpen ourselves. a ‘point’ is not an intrinsic quality of anything. it is something we ourselves must fashion carefully and attach as fletchers to the shaft of our work. i am in the process of crafting a point for these posts, and for my writing in general. i know it is something i must do, writing, but i don’t know why. i have found, though, that i only ever learn through the process of doing.

look inward, i have been telling myself lately, over and over so that i don’t forget. the answer is always inward. what is the point of writing?: look inward. do not look outward at books or lectures or at profits or other people’s approval. look inward. deep in the dark crevices of my soul there is something that glitters and sparks when i write. the only way to discover the true shape and color of this mysterious object, is to repel into the depths and observe it carefully in those brief flashes of light. and to summon those flashes, i must write… write…. write…