Reinventing Your Self

I had no intention of ever returning to this blog.

I am proud of what I did on this blog over the years, but I had moved on from what it was. There was no reason to continue. When I signed off, it really was meant to be for good.

That was before Tumblr decided to change their policies and did so in the most ham-fisted way possible. I no longer have any confidence in Tumblr's long-term survival. I don't want to be an active part of their platform regardless.

So, I am back.

This isn't going to be a return to the old style of blogging. Mostly, this is to find a home for my content that will hopefully not be disrupted by capricious changes or incompetent management. Maybe that will inspire me in ways I cannot imagine at present.

The look of this blog will probably be revamped in the coming weeks. I plan to deprecate the old content, but none of it will be removed. This is about a new beginning, not erasing the past.

2019 will be the 10th anniversary of this particular blog. It was originally created as a back-up for my LiveJournal. Now, I am returning to it after a long detour onto Tumblr.

Funny how that worked out.

This is "OWARI"

...And this is "the end."

I know, I know - I said I was probably done for 2017. That was my intent. But I've been thinking about it, and really, all I would be doing is delaying the inevitable.

This blog is broken. It has been for some time. I won't say there hasn't been good content over the last few years, because there absolutely has. But my commitment has declined, and that has led to the frustrations I have voiced here in the recent past. Looking over my pattern of posting since 2014, it's pretty clear I made this decision a long time ago.

This is an imperfect and inelegant conclusion to what, quite unexpectedly, turned out to be one of my better projects. It began as a simple emergency back-up to my LiveJournal and grew to become a place where I was able to hone my writing craft in ways I never had before. I will always have fond memories of this blog, and I will keep it online with no regrets. It's just that it's time to move on.

I haven't quite given up on blogging just yet. I've got some blogs I intend to continue, and I'll be getting to them before I sign off here. I've also got something in mind that I am considering exploring which might involve a blog. For practical and aesthetic reasons, however, that blog won't be this one.

My current whereabouts:

• Captain Satellite will continue telling tales of the Owariverse. It's been on an extended hiatus until relatively recently, but rest assured, it's not going anywhere. I'll also be putting up more content on OWARI 2.0 if you absolutely need the "OWARI" brand in your life. Since it's my main account on Tumblr, I should use it on occasion.

• My Twitter @celamowari shows no signs of going away, unless Twitter itself finally does.

• You can also feel free to look me up on any of the other links in the sidebar. No promises about those though.

If you are reading this, or if you ever read this blog, or have just supported me in some fashion, thank you. I have been doing this for almost nine years here, and it has been a rewarding experience. I think I've been putting this off because of how much I used to love it. But I'm ready now to let this one go.

おわり

So Anyway...

I've closed this blog at least once, and waffled on the idea several other times. I'm loath to do so yet again. It just feels wishy-washy. Probably a good way to describe my approach to blogging anymore.

Problem is, I have no motivation and no inspiration for this right now. After 14 years (!) of blogging dating back to LiveJournal, I feel like I've hit a wall. The daily grind for minimal reward has caught up with me. I can still put together a good piece when called upon (I have a review of THE MANSTER submitted for the upcoming issue of XENORAMA), but that doesn't extend to OWARI of late.

If it makes followers of this blog feel any better (it probably won't), this malaise has happened pretty much across the board on all my projects. My Tumblrs have been on hiatus since January, and let's not even talk about DeviantArt. I'm still doing things and reading things and watching things - I just don't feel like writing about them.

Unless something changes, this will probably be it for 2017. I'll re-evaluate later. For what it's worth, I'm sorry this blog has mostly degenerated into navel-gazing over whether I should continue doing it.

If anyone is interested, I do still post semi-regularly on Twitter.

Briefly Noted

I've been a bit stuck, and see no reason to force out something halfhearted just for the sake of content. However, I did add some things to the tags list in anticipation of future posts that may or may not happen. First is "vinegar syndrome" for the highly interesting Vinegar Syndrome cult film company. The next is "x" for more adult-oriented films and related posts. The latter is not going to be retroactive, so it only begins with entries in 2017. Prior to that, you're on your own.

I'll be back when I'm back. Take care.

Don't Call It A Comeback

I guess I owe an explanation. When I said goodbye to this blog in January, I had every intention of it being permanent. I only hedged my bets on that because that's how I am. But I really didn't see any point in continuing and figured that was it.

A funny thing happened along the way. No, I didn't miss the blog. In fact, I kept up the sidebar just as I promised and checked in periodically. It was worse than misplaced nostalgia. I had wanted to concentrate on other things and gradually found myself doing...well, basically nothing for me.

I re-activated this blog with one mission only - get back to writing at least something every once in awhile. Even if all it is turns out to be an explanation of why I'm blogging. No more filler posts just to hit a quota that exists only in my head. It doesn't even matter if there's an audience, and, in fairness, that had diminished even before I hung out a CLOSED sign. This exists mostly to keep me in practice. If you want to read it, I welcome you.

Already, this has paid some dividends. I completed a couple of projects that I'm not sure would have gotten finished 6 months ago. I'm still waiting for one to become "official" and the other one is unfortunately stuck in limbo for the foreseeable future. No matter. I'm back in the game, at least for the time being.

It's not a comeback because I never really went away. But damn, it still feels good.

Sayonara ('Til We Meet Again)

I wanna keep this brief, but that's never been my strong suit.

If you've been following for awhile, you probably know I've been deeply conflicted for the better part of two years about continuing this blog. In reviewing the past year and a half of entries, I realized something - I really don't have anything I want to say here anymore. This isn't an indictment of this blog, or my audience, or even blogging itself. It's just that after over 12 years of doing this sort of thing (7 of them here), my interests have drifted in different directions.

To be clear, I'm not deleting this blog. It will stay up as long as Google sees fit. I'm pretty proud of it as a body of work, and I'd say well over half of it is what I wanted it to be. But I don't have any plans right now to update it further. Maybe that will change in a few months. Maybe that will change in a couple of years. I'm leaving that option open. Trust me, you'll be the first to know.

Also, I am not going away. You can still find me in the following places:

Twitter, for the occasional "wisdom" you have found here.

The Captain Satellite Tumblr and Captain Satellite Facebook, for the continuing adventures in the Owariverse.

My Tumblr and DeviantArt pages, though I am not actively posting on either at this time. Hopefully, that will be changing in the months ahead.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read, commented on, or just visited this blog. You have made it all worthwhile. I will still be lurking in the corner, occasionally messing around with the sidebar links or other such business. But for now at least, I am signing off here.

Comings and Goings

I should probably update this silly blog. Sometimes, it seems it only gets love when I have something else to report. Considering how long these changes have been in effect, this probably says something about me.

First: "Pictures of Naomi Morinaga" is defunct (again), and I will not be bringing it back this time. It had stopped posting in March 2014 and there seemed little point in continuing to monitor it. This may open the door for one of you enterprising Naomi fans who visit every day to open your OWN fansite. I'll be looking for it!

Second: "Continued Next Week!" is on hiatus, and may be finished. I don't know for certain on this one, so I'll be taking a wait and see approach. However, it will remain up for the foreseeable future.

Third: I'm probably going to be participating less on DeviantArt, for various reasons. It's been awhile since I actually accomplished any art worth posting anyway. I'll have to figure out my course of action when the art resumes.

But zounds! It's not all endings! Please welcome the new Captain Satellite Facebook Page! It will be working in tandem with the Captain Satellite Tumblr (which hasn't update in like a month, oops)t deliver the Owariverse content that maybe somebody out there craves.

There's probably more, but that is all that occurs right now. I've been struggling with poor internet here at OWARI HQ for about a month, and that has tempered my enthusiasm for online mischief of late. Hopefully, that will be corrected soon. Meanwhile, if I don't post again in this space until afterward, Happy Holidays to you and yours!

OWARI, Elsewhere: The Blogs

I've been fiddling with the blog sidebar again, and I think I have it the way I want it (for now). As I audited my links, it occurred to me that I have a number of sites in the old repertoire that I don't link anymore. Many of them are defunct but still online. In this series, I'll give you links to other places you could once find me on the internet.

Part I: The Blogs

Still Active

* Continued Next Week! (2012-    )

Retired

* Captain Satellite's Fun Fun Central (2003-2010)
* Earth B (2006)
* Not Christopher Elam's OWARI (2012)¹
* Pictures of Naomi Morinaga (2012-2014)²

Deleted

* OWARI Tumblr Annex (christopherelam.tumblr.com) was my original personal Tumblr founded in January 2012, but it fell early victim to my issues with that site. It was finally deleted later that year. I re-registered the url as a placeholder but deleted it for good a couple of months ago.

* At various points, I have had blogs on the following services before deleting them: Journalfen, Myspace, GreatestJournal (site closed), Yahoo 360 (site closed), and possibly others. Additionally, I had an RP account on GreatestJournal, an alternate parody account on LiveJournal and a couple of "secret" blogs on LJ. All of that is scattered to the four winds now. Except for El Beardo.

* There was at one time a "returnofjetman" community on LiveJournal, too. I am fuzzy on both when it was founded (2004?) and when it was deleted (no idea anymore).

Other

* Begun in 2009 and then largely forgotten, there is a syndicated LiveJournal feed for this blog. It is still dutifully picking up posts even though I don't think anyone follows it except my old account.




Endnotes

¹(Placeholder blog to prevent spammers from claiming the celamowari.blogspot.com url again.)

²An earlier version of this blog existed at the same url from 2011-2012 but was deleted.

Blogs Will Live! Blogs Will Die!

...And nothing will ever be the same!

One of my favorite phrases when I'm working on a project of some kind is "going down rabbit holes." That's when you get distracted from the task at hand by something or other and it consumes you enough that it starts to take on its own importance. Occasionally, going down rabbit holes has led to unexpected rewards. More often than not, it's just a waste of time.

I first signed up for Tumblr in 2011. I have had as many as seven different individual Tumblr blogs at a time. There's a lot to like about Tumblr. So it may be a surprise that I have come to the conclusion that maintaining a "personal" Tumblr blog presence has been one of the single biggest rabbit holes of my life.

I have written in the past (probably too much) about my problems with Tumblr. I thought it might be an ample, low-maintenance replacement for this blog when I went into semi-retirement here in September. I tried, I really tried to make it work this time. But I have decided that I am just not happy with what I have been doing there and that my energies can be directed in more constructive pursuits.

Basically, I have burned OWARI 2.0 down to the ground. There are still some posts there, to prove that it existed. However, I am officially closing that place. There is a slight chance I might post there every so often, but it's really not in my plans. I'm done with the notion of keeping a personal Tumblr. It just doesn't suit my ideas of blogging at all.

This does not mean I am leaving Tumblr. I will still be following other people on there (though not nearly as many as I once was), and people are still welcome to follow me. I'll still be liking posts. Frankly, there is too much I would miss to give Tumblr the old heave-ho.

There's also the little matter of Captain Satellite. Ironically, given my many misgivings about Tumblr, it has been the perfect home for the Owariverse. I have no better options for hosting that material, and I am queasy about starting all over right now. So I stay with Tumblr and nothing really changes for Cap and company.

As far as my other Tumblrs? Some of those have already been deleted or cleaned out. Others will continue in some form, whether they are active or not. I haven't decided on everything just yet, but the beauty of it is, I don't really need to make a big splashy announcement with the way Tumblr works. I can just quietly stop posting if that's what I'm feeling.

What does this mean for this blog? Well, nothing much. Ironically, I had just been contemplating how OWARI has sort of become its own island in my works and is now disconnected from everything else. I see this as a GOOD thing. Sometimes, I need a forum that only this blog can provide. Besides, there is way too much good stuff here to just delete it all. For all my mixed feelings about this blog, it has been pretty successful in getting the word out as far as non-fiction goes.

And now, back to work!

Captain Satellite and the Island of Broken Links

I wrote about Bob March, the ORIGINAL "Captain Satellite" as a TV host, back in 2012. This great picture of March was recently shared by KTVU Channel 2's Facebook page. I thought it might be of interest to those of you out there searching for more info on him. I know you're out there, because I see your searches.

You might notice that two of the three external links in that entry no longer work properly. Such is the way of the internet. I discovered this while updating the Captain Satellite FAQ not long ago. I have replaced those links with the following:

'Captain Satellite' was a TV space pioneer / Bob March's show gave children insider's view of NASA missions

Mike Humbert's Idiosyncratic Guide to San Francisco: Captain Satellite

This reminds me that I have been whittling away entries on my primary Tumblr again, and once more, there are probably more dead links on this blog. I don't expect it's a huge deal to anyone, but I thought I should acknowledge it. Nothing has been permanently discarded, but as the Captain Satellite blog gets going a bit more, there is less need for a lot of older, redundant posts. If you absolutely can't find something, let me know and I'll try to point you in the right direction.

Since I've Been Gone

Funny things happened since we last met here at OWARI. Water line broke (again). Car went in the shop (again). Then, my laptop's hard disk failed on February 27 (not long after I learned of the passing of Leonard Nimoy, in fact). I was without my own internet access as a result. I was able to borrow my sister's connection, but I had to stop by her house and obviously couldn't stick around for extended periods of time. That meant that until I got my fixed computer back on March 12, my presence on the web was significantly reduced.

It's been a rolling series of disasters I've been dreading, and I somehow made it out OK. But of course, I'm still kind of at a standstill as far as the changes I've been trying to affect in my life. Not for lack of trying, but...well, hopefully something will work out soon.

One thing that was interesting about the enforced lack of Internet was how much I didn't mind the limited access. It made me re-examine some of my priorities and how I was spending my time. Of course, since getting the computer back, I've been in much the same pickle as before. However, I like to think I'm getting better at managing my time. Certainly, I am more aware of it.

One day, hopefully in the next few weeks, I will be back to discuss the mystery of Larry Yakata. I'd also like to review some of the movies I watched during my absence, including the amazing DEATH MACHINES. Stay tuned and keep watching the skies!

Onward!

A lot can happen in a year. So just imagine how much can happen in six years. That's how long ago I started this particular blog. I had no clue at the time I was about to close the door on a couple of aspects of my life and open the door on a couple of others. Just luck of the draw, really.

I've spent the last few months trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this blog going forward. There was a strong sentiment to just close it down entirely in September. Views were down, and there was the growing realization that "blogging" has shifted to a degree from when I started. Plus, it was hard to ignore the fact that two friends of mine who coincidentally also started blogs in 2009 had abandoned posting on their blogs. The handwriting seemed to be on the wall.

But? In the intervening months, I've come to realize the possible usefulness of keeping this place open. It's not going to be the same as it was in, say, 2010-11 though. When you push the reset button, you can't just undo that decision. Plus, I simply don't have the same level of interest I had when this enterprise was at its peak.

I suppose in a real sense I fell victim to that very interest in building this blog. "OWARI" is not this blog, just as it wasn't the fanzine that carried the name off and on for ten years. OWARI is me. The blog is just a vehicle, and I think I lost sight of that along the way.

Anyway, the OWARI blog will stay open and I will keep posting here when the mood strikes. I would *like* make at least one post a month for consistency's sake, but I'm not even going to promise that. Similarly, I don't know what you'll be seeing here in the future. This is not me being coy, because I really just don't know. We're going to find out together. And if there's not much to say? There won't be much here.

I'd like to say how much I appreciate everyone who reads this blog, from the regulars I've inexplicably built up over the years to the one-offs who arrive via search engines. You've buoyed my spirits as I try to make some difficult transitions. Onward and upward with the arts!

Reaching The Finish Line

No no, not with this blog. As you can see, the blog is still kicking against all odds. In fact, I think I've finally decided what to do here. But that will be a topic for another day. Spoiler though - I'm not closing it permanently.

This post is here because I am celebrating. You see, in September, I decided to embark on the Captain Satellite Tumblr Project. I wanted to create a place for the Owariverse, and I wanted to use it to make a fresh start. The evolution of my fictional world has been filled with starts and stops, and as a result, there were plenty of things about it that I found wanting. It has long been my desire to try to set things up in a way I found artistically satisfying.

The problem was that making such fixes as you go is terribly awkward. Please see the fact that I have established things on this blog that blatantly contradict the book I published of those characters in 2011. So I've been putting a lot of bandages on a continuity I was making up as I went. And to be honest, much of what had been written was pretty sparse in the detail department.

The Tumblr account was exactly the remedy for what ailed the Owariverse. Taking this new start as an opportunity, I declared that I was blowing up everything and putting the pieces back together again. Of course, to do that, I had re-examine every single profile for my world. And that was, uh, a lot. Seventy-eight (78), to be precise.

The first order of business was sitting down and examining what I had and consider how I wanted to go forward with each character. Because, in truth, I had fallen victim to the idea of throwing together profiles for any supporting character who popped into my head semi-formed. A lot of them only merited two or three sentences. If I wanted readers to care about these people, I needed to care enough about them to tell their story in a little more depth.

If you mosey over to the new Profile Page, you will see 60 entries there (though most are not actually live). Six of those do not exist in the Owariverse Encyclopedia I compiled here. Another merges what had been two separate entries. So yeah, I scrapped over 20 profiles in this new revamp. Most of those characters still exist in some form or another, but I decided I didn't have enough to say about them to warrant an individual entry. I can't say this is the way it should have always been, because it's taken me years of trial and error to get my material and my ability to the point I am today.

ANYWAY, I decided prior to launch I needed to work out all the individual profiles for these characters. I needed a clear idea of how they related to one another and the bigger universe they inhabit. But...60 profiles? Some could be rewritten, but in other cases, I was almost starting over. A few times, I was building a character from the ground up. It seemed daunting. And I'll be honest, my track record in recent times hasn't been great. Two abandoned short stories, a shelved novella, a blog fallen on hard times -- it even took three additional years after wrapping Return of Jetman to stagger to the conclusion by completing the notes.

Today, I did it. Sixty profiles are in the can and ready to go. Nine have already been posted. The remaining fifty-one await their accompanying art. That part will happen at its own pace. But in approximately three months time, I managed to achieve a personal creative goal I had set for myself. The results are some of the most satisfying works I have ever created. I am pleased.

Allow me a moment to take a victory lap for finding success amidst much failure this year. Meanwhile, Captain Satellite boosters are advised to bookmark and/or follow the Captain Satellite Tumblr. If you don't, you are missing out on such stuff as Muttnik the Satellite Dog. And that would be a pity.

My Story of Comics

Hello again!

Still not sure what the long-term plan for this blog is going to be, but I've been keeping myself occupied with social media and Captain Satellite stuff since things geared down here in September. I am really enjoying getting back in touch with my own work, and I still have outlets for my random observations, too. So I don't expect the current state of affairs for "OWARI" to change anytime soon.

I'm here tonight for a couple of reasons:

1) I finally completed the task of reviewing all of the blog's tags. I honestly can't even remember when I started this, but it's done. Well, as done as it's going to be. I was strongly considering abandoning it altogether, but made a surge and finished. I will not be doing THAT again, so make the best of the tags as they currently exist!

2) I was talking to my friend Thom not very long ago, and the subject of "My Story of Comics" came up. This was a series I wrote on my LiveJournal, and it may be the most memorable non-personal sequence I ever did on Ye Olde LJ. I was forever thinking about re-doing it and posting it here, but it seemed so very "of its moment" that I couldn't find a way.

That moment was almost exactly ten years ago (!!!!!) now. Here then is a handy index of of those posts - "My Story of Comics"

A few things occurred to me in re-reading this today. One, I was really angry about this at the time. I suspect writing that was my way of letting go of that anger - though it took awhile. Two, I'm not sure if superhero fans didn't save the comic book industry. I look at the way magazines are dying off and wonder if comic books would have survived without a fandom. I mean, we live in a world where U.S. News & World Report is no longer a print publication, but there are several Avengers titles. Three, did manga's popularity cool off or is it just me? It's still viable, but not on the level it was then. And four, I didn't see digital comics coming at all. That's probably the wave of the future.

That's all for tonight. Back one of these days, when we least expect it.

Temporarily(?) Closed For Business

In what is probably not a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention the last few months, I decided today to suspend posting on this blog indefinitely.

The funny thing is, it's actually a surprise to me. I had two unfinished drafts sitting on my panel, and one of them was only started on Monday. It was a potentially good post - the first part of a series, in fact - on a topic that interests me. I had already been researching it last week.

...And I realized today that I didn't care. No, I still care about the topic, and the research I was doing. I just didn't care if I ever finished the post, or any of the subsequent posts that would need to be written.

Do you remember the tribute post I did about Casey Kasem in June? The link to the story on the Xenorama Facebook page got picked up by Facebook's Trending Topics. Its reach is 38,368 people, it has been liked by 102 people, and it has been shared 20 times. Impressive! But the actual blog entry - the thing I wrote - only has 310 views. That's less than 1% of the people who saw the Facebook link.

I keep deleting things I've written because it sounds like I'm whining. I never expected much of a readership when I started this blog, and I'm surprised I ever found one at all. It's just that I've been doing this for awhile, and my enthusiasm for writing most of the content here has been wavering. If there's not an audience for it, and I'm not feeling it, it seems kind of silly to keep going.

I don't know, five and a half years sounds like a good run for a blog to me. I've had a lot of fun here. But there comes a time when you have to know when to move on, and I have the sneaking suspicion this is that time for this blog. It was difficult to end the fanzine and the message board that were the previous incarnations of OWARI. It was difficult to abandon the LiveJournal that had been my blogging headquarters since 2003. Heck, it was hard to close the books on Return of Jetman in December and Pictures of Naomi Morinaga in March (I don't think I ever mentioned the closing of the latter, but yeah, it's done). I just think maybe I should be looking in different directions.

To be clear, I'm not disappearing. Ohhhhhh no, far from it. You can still find me on:

Twitter

Tumblr

I'm also still fighting the good fight of remembering Rene Bond at Rene Bond Tribute (220 Likes strong!) and still posting images related to movie serials (sometimes only tangentially) at Continued Next Week! (currently at 145 followers!).

There are also preliminary plans for something "major" to come down the line at some point. When? I have no idea right now. Keep your eyes open on Twitter and Tumblr, and all should be revealed... one day.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's to never rule out anything. With that in mind, I'm not ruling out this blog making a thrilling comeback someday. I'm not even ruling out a random post or two straggling into publication when it's least expected. But if this really is "the end" for OWARI, I want to at least acknowledge it, and say thank you to all of you who have been reading and commenting over the years.

Remember, it's not "Goodbye," just "See you around!"

It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

Considering I have spent far too much time blogging about why I'm not blogging, I have been struggling with this post and this decision for awhile. May was kind of a tipping point for me in a lot of ways, and it has caused me to re-evaluate what I'm doing here and why. So let's just get to it.

Going forward, this blog is going to be updated sporadically at best. I'm going to try to post at least once a month - I mean, I usually find something I need to talk about at length. There may be more than one post. It's all going to depend on my feelings and time, not because of any responsibility I feel to fill this blog with fresh content.

There are still plenty of topics to discuss and explore. I still want and (dare I say it?) need to blog sometimes. But I've let myself become imprisoned by the notion I needed to have something here, even when I don't feel like it. And as of right this second, I don't feel like it. I'm tired and dealing with a lot of real life things that could very well shape my future. Sitting down and trying to figure out how to compose a semi-coherent blog entry is not a high priority right now.

I love this blog. I love doing this blog. And I'm sorry to all the people who follow this blog about the fact that it's been sort of spiraling down the last few months. I think an occasional burst of blogging is better than closing this place entirely. Don't you?

If you'd like to keep up with my public flights of fancy, there's always Twitter. I'm also still doing image blogging at OWARI 2.0 and Continued Next Week! when the mood strikes.

I appreciate all of you who read and follow this blog. Remember, it's not an end, but a new beginning.

Is This How The Blog Ends?!?

No.

Yeah, I don't know what's been going on either. I've got a couple of movies under my belt that I should probably review. Got some cool reading material, too. Even have pretty mammoth music post I'd like to do. But I've been distracted by both the usual culprits and new ones, too. You know the drill.

Anyway. I'll try to do better the rest of the month. I'd like to pick up the story I started at the end of April. And no, I haven't forgotten that Owariverse story either. Though it's been long enough I expect some of you might have. One day...

Distractions & Disappointments

I was kinda on a roll last week, thinking I was going to post an entry every weekday. Then my Internet went out on Thursday and that put a kibosh on that. Between catching up on lost time and other matters that needed attending, that was it for blogging last week. Which didn't really matter, as it turns out.

I've recently discussed the problems I have encountered in keeping this blog fresh. One of them that I hadn't mentioned is that my stats have kind of fallen off a cliff of late. I am not sure what to make of it, exactly. My first instinct is that Blogger has at least temporarily killed some of my view spam, and while I think that's true, it shouldn't affect individual entries. Yet almost everything is way down.

Why? I don't know. My guess is that I am experiencing a social media fail, but I don't have the will to increase my presence right now. Or maybe it's just fatigue among my meager audience. I haven't really gotten a lot of feedback about a lack of enthusiasm about content, but then, I haven't gotten a lot of feedback in general in recent months.

I still have things I want to discuss and review here, of course, but now find my energies better channeled in other directions. I am working on a new short story (not the long-promised novella) that has been in my head since 2011. It's not a question as to if the story gets done, but when. I'd like to spend more time expanding my own body of work, rather than just examining the work of others. The latter is easier, so it's tempting to just stay in that mode whether you have anything to say or not.

I'd like to stress that I'm not complaining. We all have problems, and this is a shockingly minor one even for me. A handful of entries still get hits every day and buoy my hopes that people are reading. It's sometimes even the most inexplicable things - like my Ellen Page entry going over 100 views. How far into searches for her do you have to go to get here? So I'm grateful for all of that, even if it rarely translates into long-term readers.

Christopher Elam's OWARI - You're Not Getting Rid Of Me That Easily

Monday Musing

Things are hopefully in the process of getting back to passes for "normal" here. It will be a nice change of pace to talk about stuff instead of talking about why I'm not talking about stuff. That will be cool, won't it?

Last week, I had the occasion to talk about this book. You know, I had almost forgotten how much I liked doing it three years ago. Which...wait, really? Three years? We are really overdue for a revised and updated Captain Satellite: Number Zero and my long-promised follow-up book. There have been several changes (a few significant) since the early days of 2011, and I need to seriously think about having a product that reflects them.

I've ruminated on this in the past, but this blog pretty much hit its high point in 2011. I became more focused on my universe and less on outside stuff as much. Since the Owariverse has gradually receded into the background (for assorted reasons), it's difficult to maintain the pace and enthusiasm of this blog when it was active. I dunno, it's a dilemma with no immediate solutions at present.

If you hadn't guessed, reviewing the blog's history leads to interesting thoughts. We'll see how that plays out in the end.

It's Been Such A Long Time

I literally haven't sat down to type up a new entry since I finished the previous "Jazzman" one on February 18th. So this is interesting. I am only about halfway through reviewing this blog's contents (currently in early 2011), though I did finish up work on the Tumblr. Unfortunately, I still have not quite completed this piece I was going to write. Why? Well, it turns out I managed to get sick just as I was taking my break from the blog. Timing, I have it.

Anyway, here is a peek at things to come, courtesy of Kabuki Katze: