The other day I realized I’d written a grand total of three posts here this year and two of them had to do with death. This realization came after reading a friend’s status update lamenting a case of writer’s block. I’m not sure if I’m blocked per se, but the motivation to write here has been missing. Or at least not what it was. So I’ve been trying to figure out why.

I’ve rarely been prolific here, especially in the last couple years. I’ve mostly written when there’s something longform I need to get off my chest. Other than that, this space has mostly been a repository of live readings, announcements and a few bits of ephemera.

This never particularly bothered me before. I enjoyed the notion that I only wrote here when I really felt I had something to say. (I have a couple of drafts started in background but never finished them to my liking.) Twitter was the steam valve for everything else. But lately it’s been mostly jokes and work links from me there.

I’ve wondered if this particular dry spell could be attributable to work. The creative itch, the ability to tackle larger issues…much of that gets taken care of on a daily basis there; it really is great to be participating in a newsroom again. But as much as I’m helping guide that process, the real writing is handled by others.

And yes, I’ve been busy. The first event in the reading series I’m producing – it’s called The Frunchroom, you should come! – is this week. It’s one of the big to-dos on my #40in15 list. Then there was the parade and everything else. But everybody’s busy.

So I’m back to where I started.

I’m not entirely sure how much my friend Mark’s recent death is tied into all this. But quite a bit, I’d wager. The raw emotion of the experience is certainly why I didn’t have it in me to write my annual post about Abigail and I sharing a birthday week (he passed away in between our birthdays). And he was one of my favorite writers, particularly in the past year as he tackled some of the headier issues in Chicago politics. My better moments of intelligence came from discussions with him. I miss all that.

I’ve wondered what my first post back from that will be. And it’s probably kept me from writing – the need for it to be just right. But it won’t be so…

I’ve hesitated to discuss this in this space. It’s personal and I don’t tend to write like that here or do these kind of deck-clearing, head-clearing posts either. But at some point I realized until you do that, the fear is going to get the better of you. And you’re never going to get back to why you did it in the first place. And by you, I mean me.

So the above is a bit of a mess. That’s fine. It’s enough that it’s here at all. The publish button as an act of defiance.