Guh, this is a bit of a rant, but I feel I need to get it out, even if nobody reads this. I am in a rut, and it is quite frankly pissing me off. Almost every single time I try to do something creative, my mind goes rather blank. Forcing creativity rarely works, but every time I go to write something, or heck do much of anything requiring some level of creative spark, I just end up staring at my computer screen, doing nothing, the gears spinning but not catching. The worst part is that I'm still getting ideas. What makes that so frustrating is even though I've got a skeleton of a premise with those ideas, I can't get anything more than that. I try to write an actual story, and it just feels like I'm reiterate the premise I'd written down, just with a couple more words. It's like my mind's on this routine autopilot that won't let me deviate from the course from day to day, and creativity deviates from that course.

There are short stories I'd like to finish in order to submit to fantasy magazines that lay unchanged from a month or two ago, a 1-30 level Dungeons and Dragons campaign I'm supposed to be working on for a local hobby store (unpaid freelance but work credible) that lays dormant because, even though I know how it's supposed to go, my mind goes numb when I try to flesh it out, and my other personal shorts aren't faring much better.

I'm in a funk, have been for the last few weeks. I don't know how to get out, and it's even worse as some of these projects are supposed to be helping to build my portfolio for potential job opportunities and time is just going by because my muse seems to have taken an unpaid holiday. I want to promote myself as both an author and creative designer. I'm unemployed, with a degree that feels useless, in a market where jobs are a pain to find, and I feel like I am making absolutely no progress on anyhting, including finding a job. I want to support myself and have a structure on which to live an independent life, but I just can't seem to do that. And though I've done a lit for art trade here on FA, of which my work was well recieved, I sure as hell don't feel comfortable with trying to open commissions at the moment (if there'd even be any takers). Ironically, that's either the best idea or worst idea I could have in my current state, and as I'm wont to do, I'll error on the side of caution. Especially in the state I'm in now, I don't want to feel like I'm doing nothing when I'm "on the clock", a feeling I absolutely hate.

I think there's a saying that goes, "familiarity breeds contempt". Maybe that's what I'm feeling towards my work. It's so familiar and I know it so intimately that it now all reads like dull, lackluster prose or general, unpolished garbage. Intellectually I know this isn't really the case, but the heart at the moment is far more persuasive than the head. I'm just not feeling it, and I don't know why, and I don't like the feeling one bit. I don't feel like me, and even though I feel like I'm accomplishing nothing, the days just seem to be flying on by. I feel like a pup among the pack when I should be dispersing into the world to find my own way, to make my own life, and to form a pack of his own. It's almsot a depressing feeling, though I highly doubt that I'm really depressed. It's more akin to a constant state of mild self frustration at having something seemingly out of my control running my life, while in reality it is more likely than not perfectly in my control and I just don't know what it is.

At the moment, my mind has also been taking much darker paths in its ideas, as opposed to the more light-hearted works that are the majority of my gallery, many of which were inpired by artists here on the site (most notably Mocha_Mephookie for being one of the catalysts to Conall and Sharon's existence). So all of you who watch me and read my works, even though it's the holidays and Halloween has passed, don't be surprised to see darker, more mature, possibly even fully adult works from me. I'm talking along the lines of hard vore (w/ digestion), death, possibly torture, characters with sadistic natures/tendencies, and other darker themes. I will warn all of you now, there may even be a story in which supernatural rape is involved, though if it comes to fruition I may refrain from posting it as a more personal work. Hopefully this is just something of a phase and something I need to do to break out of routine which seems to have robbed me of my creativity.

Well, I suppose that helped my mood, but didn't help bring back my muse. So, this may mark the beginning of a new direction for my works, a much darker and potentially disturbing direction. If you have grown attached to my lighter works, I ask only for pateince through this phase, and encourage you to just read what seems appealing to you, and for you to know that this knew direction will not be permanent, but just another facet of my artistic development. At least, I sincerely hope so, for I hope I never lose my lighter side. Here's to traveling to the dark side of the moon, and I hope to still be seeing you all when I come back around.