Image from Adobe Stock I see the shadows move around the bend.Without an origin, they lack a destined fate.I follow the street where pools of light meetWith depths of virginal darkness, late at night.Inky blackness makes the formsShaped from gradients of Void-substance.Nothing self-negates by making Being.Creatures coalesce and scramble in periphery.They swarm in the shadows and cover me.Further along the dark-way.Repeating patterns of motion lead me silently.Unacknowledged, untouched, but surrounded by companions -- I am.

I was successfully scammed this month. Although I tend to be good at losing my invested effort, this was easily the hardest money I ever lost. What I retain is the change in my methodology that I effected in the effort to implement these two fictitious freelance projects, one of which successfully made off with my funds. It started with my return to two freelancing job websites, Guru and Upwork.

Trying to write is immediately painful, because it brings to immediate focus one’s internal misery. It would seem that to be actually effective and efficient as a writer, one must first go through whatever may be necessary to heal from one’s conflictions. But even if one is psychologically and emotionally stable at the moment of composition, that moment of staring at the blank screen will inevitably be a moment of tension as a thousand potential distractions loudly peddle escape from the confrontation.