Stuck at WD-39

In and attempt to write about something - anything - I racked my brain for subjects that would allow for an easy flow of thoughts and words. I haven't written anything I have been particularly happy with in a number of months. With each failed attempt, I have fallen further out of practice.

I have become a rusty hinge in need of some WD-40.

The past week the chase of this mystical article has been top of mind. Finally, tonight, I found a topic.

This was the topic.

During the last year, I have written less than I have in the past 15 years. What started out as a late-night scribble became loose free verse. I was productive in spurts. One such burst was inspired by an episode of My So-Called Life. (It was the one where Brian Krakow stood up to the principle.)

I wrote some throughout college - finding my groove in the late-'90's. I was incredibly productive writing hundreds of free verse. When, in '99, I took a job with a magazine, my own personal writings fell completely off the map. Nothing will zap one's creative zest like trying to make a career out of that which you most enjoy. At least that was the case with me.

After a couple of years, I got out of the writing business and moved on to other career opportunities. Soon thereafter, I found myself writing again. My big project - a screen play - still sits unfinished. If it was in paper form, It would be yellowed and covered in years of dust. Despite positive response to the dialog, I lost momentum and have yet to find the needed footholds to dig back in my masterpiece. Masterpiece, right.

Where I failed the screenplay, I succeeded in free verse. And so I went on like a poet in a park, writing little notes about what inspired me. But there only so many events to draw on, and so my pen ran low. I needed a new challenge.

Having rediscovered my joy for music, I began talking about a Web site that would allow me to focus on music while also allowing me to get back to journalistic writing. After years of talk, DeadJournalist.com was launched in March 2006.

Look at the number of interviews from that year. Keep in mind I was deejaying, working my regular job and freelancing for Performer Magazine. That, my friends, is the smell of burnout.

The last few years I've tried to keep DeadJournalist.com rolling with interviews and a few articles here and there. But in the last year or so, I've fallen into decline. Gone are the long-winded interview intros. Gone are the random ramblings. But the site stays, and hopefully will continue, as an avenue of musical relevance.

I've written before about my journey through the internet in the past. My journey through writing is not so different.

But now, I find myself struggling. Finding topics on which I can expound is far more difficult now than in the past. Some topics, I've covered before with nothing new to add. Others would require too much research and thought - and more realistically time - to cover without feeling like an AM radio blow-hard.

And so I struggle through a few interviews for the Web site, or a couple of paragraphs worth of reviews. I'd gotten harder, not easier.

Rust. Damn the rust.