I created a #gopher hole at gopher://gopher.club:70/1/users/trdaisuke/
I'll be crossposting my posts here going forward.

This post originally hit the smolweb on 10 June 22 at gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/trdaisuke/First.txt although as you will read it was originally written much earlier...

Originally written 4 October 2020.

10 June 2022 addendum: Yikes... for real? Have I really been just 
thinking about making a gopher for 20 months? Well, at least I've finally 
gotten around to putting it up.
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Lately I've felt like I can't write anything more than a few sentences at 
a time, so I thought I would set up a little gopher hole here to try to 
get in the swing of writing again.

It's particularly devastating to me to have this mental block against 
writing since I was a writer all through college and studied creative 
writing as my major. Notice I didn't say "writer's block" - it's far 
worse than that. Writer's block usually connotes a block against writing 
in some project or work. But for me right now, it's practically 
everything. Work emails, social media posts, even to-do lists seem to 
paralyze me.

I can't figure out why or what caused this block. Is it as if once the 
word is written, I've lost control of it? I can't change it or take it 
back? It's also possible it's a result of the turmoil in the world right 
now. Maybe I'm so unsettled by what's going on out there that prevents me 
from getting in a writing frame of mind. Or maybe it's my general 
transformation from a creative person to a more conventionally-minded 
person. Or frankly, it might be because I've gotten worse at focusing and 
minimizing distractions.

In any case, I'm bothered by it, so I'll be trying this as a form of 
active practice. It has been some time since I've kept a written personal 
journal. Maybe this will help me to get over this slump.