Being off the grid...

something I really and truly suck at. For once.

So, you may or may not have noticed that my apparent news of going “off the grid” seems to not be going that well. Not only am I still frequently using MSN (btw, if you see me there say Hi), I'm still not using this newfound “time away” from technology to complete the tasks that I want to do. Boy am I ever slacking with this, but on the plus side, I've managed to only reactivate my Facebook account once within this time. And the only reason I had done that was to clean out my friends list, though I may have deleted a few too many people and you may inadvertently been one of them, if you find this the case let me know if/when I reactivate my account.

Thats right, I'm admitting that I suck at this, damnit all to hell. I'm a geek and taking away my toys doesn't really work that well.

I'm sitting here at the keyboard staring at the screen trying to find something to say, when really, I've got nothing. My fingers are poised at the kyboard hovering over the keys just waiting for something inspirational to enter into my mind so that I can show the world how smart and witty I am. I'm left sitting here with a blank stare on my face looking like a child who's just been told that there is no toothferry. This isn't a new occurrence though, I'm frequently looking blankly at the screen first thing in the morning, must have something to do with Caffeine withdrawl or something.

Though as we all know the tooth ferry does exist, she's the main cause of tooth aches when eating ice cream. True fact!

Another true fact....

Clarification

or some more confusing words to hide the point of it all.

As my valued reader(s) [which I'm assuming to this point is just me.] may or may not have noticed, I've essentially dropped off the face of the planet in an online instance. No more Facebook. No more chats. Nothing. Well, except maybe for this.

The thing that you may want to understand is my reasoning for this, I may not have written the clearest explanation possible earlier. It may seem as though I'm just abandoning everything and everyone that I'm close to (AD has gotten a few emails/messages from people asking why I'm not longer their friend on Facebook). That is not the case, all I have done with my Facebook is deactivated my account, it still exists and all of my contacts and information remain there but I'm hidden from everyone while I get everything together again.

There are a few things that I'm trying to accomplish with this. The first and foremost is to spend some more quality time with my wife, I feel as though I have been neglecting her these past few months spending more time getting in touch with old and new friends than I have with her.

Also, I have been sitting on a website and potential business opportunity for the past few months (since August I do believe) that I have done nothing with. I'm shelling out all of this money for something and yet I can't seem to get it off of the ground. There are all kinds of ideas in my head that I want to get out and get on paper but have yet to find the motivation and time to get it done.

Its never an excuse to blame an incomplete project on the lack of time and resources to get the job done (well thats what many companies blame it on), I'm still going to use it for my case though. A few years back I started writing a little story, simply called The Lumberjack. It was a modern day horror with some throwbacks to the story telling of cheesy classics. Simply stated it was an imaginative story surrounding survival, past-lives, and a close encounter with some seedy individuals. I have visions for this story to be completed at a running length of 90 – 100 pages, its nothing by modern story lengths but I'm new to writing fiction so I'm allowed to be ambitious.

On top of this there is a second story that I have on the go, which may end up getting scrapped in the near future simply for my lack of ambition in continuing on with the recent string of horror related items that I've been writing. I've picked up the proverbial pen a few times in the last couple of years but could not muster up anything more than a few scattered sentences surrounding a keyword that I had in my mind.

I'd really like to utilize this time to write something worthy, something heartwarming. Though as we all know, heartwarming is harder and more time consuming to write than anything else simply for the fact that you have to make people care about what happens to your characters. Its easy enough to write a story involving a couples love for one another and a hardship that they endure; its harder to make those characters dynamic enough that you actually want to see them make it through their ordeal.

What I'm really trying to say is this: there are so many things in life that are worth doing, why are we so preoccupied with flashy gizmo's and convenient technology that we put the things that are most important to us so far away?

Off the grid

As you may or may not have noticed, I have deactivated my Facebook account and have been using MSN Messenger less frequently.

There is one simple reason for this. I have lost touch with myself and the things that I stand for in the last few months with my obsessive use of the above mentioned applications/sites. I am ceasing to use these in an attempt to correct my life and become one with the things that I have long forgotten how to do.

Those things would be writing and reading. I have two started stories/novellas which have been sitting on the back burner for the past two years that I would like to finish at some point. There is also a continuing stack of books on my shelf that I frequently pick up but have yet to open and read.

I will still frequently update this area of my life as there are some things that require me to say and you can always reach me via email: ajyates AT gmail DOT com.