Oops....

It turns out I have a blog, and I've been very bad about my commitment to posting to it. I have excuses, some are good, some are bad. I might as well list them here, in alternating order. Many of you will find this post excruciating. I don't blame you. There'll be a better one tomorrow. This I promise. Others might find it enlightening, if you similarly find yourself afflicted with occasional bouts of 'nope, just not doing it' syndrome. It's a difficult syndrome to overcome. In fact, sometimes I think it's the hardest.

 Good reason: I've finished a new screenplay. I'm super excited about it. I'm aiming to film it either this fall or next spring, depending on when I can get my financial mess rounded back into shape. It's called 'Gamers' and it follows a young cadre of frustrated nerds in the rural Midwest during the late 90s tech bubble and their frustrations at being so isolated from the world, followed by their coming to terms with the devastation impacts the bubble's collapse has on their small town. Now, since that sounds boring as hell, I'll give you the real tag line: A group of gamer friends are forced to join a regional Starcraft tournament after their douchebag friend took their computer savings fund and used it for the entry fee. With their post-high school life plans on the line, the friends must win the tournament to make enough money to escape their backwards, isolated hometown.

Bad reason: I'm lazy and didn't want to post to it. Yes, I spent a lot of time working on the screenplay, but that didn't preclude me from posting to the blog. In fact, I've gone for a long stretch without working on either.

Good reason: I've been hella busy with social activities, including a nice trip out to Gulf Shores for the Hangout Music Fest.

Bad reason: Sometimes, I get in a funk, and I don't want to do anything. I've gotten progressively better at fighting these, but I let it win for a few weeks between screenplay work and music fest. I'm not letting another one hit me for a while.

Good reason: I've been helping my roommate on his short films, one of which was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner! We're super excited about that. The next one, when finished, will be even better. You can watch both the first and the trailer for the second here: http://vimeo.com/matt35mm

Bad reason: Finances. I've let my money supply dwindle, working fewer hours to focus on writing. This has had the net positives of above ^^^^, but the negative of distracting me as I recover from ^^^^^. To be honest, I've always found it much harder to focus any time at all on creative work when I'm money stressed. And even when I can, the product is undeniably worse. Horrible phrases like 'marketability' and 'pitch' and 'high concept' start entering my head while writing, which dooms the project from the start.

Unfortunately, this same instinct doesn't kick in to stop me from doing things like wasting hours I could be writing on reddit, so it's an overall completely useless instinct. I'm sure others face these same problems, these same obstacles to success. I offer you my moral support and conviction that financial anxiety is beatable, and one of these days, we'll both figure it out.

That's all for now. Hopefully I haven't lost all of my readers. I know some of you are out there because I see my traffic numbers. All I can say, mystery readers, is:

Thank You.

See you next time.