Writing is something I crave and need to do.  The opportunity to do so has eluded me lately for the most part.  I hope to change that.

I'm also not on this site as much as I'd hoped to be, nor as much as I used to.  I've found it frustrating that most of the competitions here turn into popularity contests and tasks of shameless self-promotion.  That's too bad.  Maybe that's just the way it is here as well as on other writing sites, but I'm not interested in plugging my own work for votes, or in commenting on as many entries as I can from others in order to get "return comments" from them.  If nothing else, I value honest thoughts and comments from others, not forced and often canned one-liners form those with only their own self-interests in mind.  In my view, that helps nobody in the end and results in a poor "winning" literary product.   It's a shame.