DISAPPEAR WITHIN DISTANCE

This isn't goodbye. Just that the monumental tussle with words I've been building up to as far back as the middle of the year has at last begun. I'm writing, you see. Not just one specific thing but many. Which is my rather disingenuous excuse for not writing. Not writing here, at least. Not that I've been writing much here of late, I know. Do I owe anyone an apology for that? Sorry, then. And know that I mean that.  But in my defense, where life used to be what arrested the steady updating of this blog, this time it's been waylaid by more writing. I'm talking partially about pieces of mine that have shown up the past few months in places like Vault and Esquire and the Philippine Star and the Singapore Cinematheque Quarterly, among others, that I've chosen, for some reason or the other and entirely mine, not to cross-publish here. But I'm mostly talking about work that will not be showing up here either and will not be showing up for quite some time but will inevitably show up, in the forms the cosmos has meant for them to take and with the requisite measure of chest-beating and town-crying that befits someone like me who tends to physically wince at the prospect of self-promotion. I'd leave it at that as I'm also terribly averse to making pronouncements before the time is right, and it won't be, not for a bit. Everything in its right place.

All this, of course, is meant to disclaim and perhaps reassure that the silences you have been, and will continue to be, subjected to are not by-products of sloth. New writing will crop up here from time to time, I suspect. And I remain committed to my traditional yearend evaluations. This piece of internet turf is more junkie habit than thankless duty for me, I can't stay away from it too long. Also, more films continue to get made.

Not to get too melodramatic nor too precious nor too self-absorbed even, but the year has been a particularly challenging one for me, with regards to work, and by work I don't mean livelihood, and I don't recall any stock-taking that ensued in the wake of any pitfall to be this severe and decisive, nor this pro-active and crucial either, and I suppose that deserves some gratitude on my part. Much as it can dangerously be a persuasive deterrent, frustration has always been a reliable and enthusiastic impetus.  I'd like to fashionably proclaim this a hiatus but that would imply that I'm taking some form of holiday from writing, which I've reiterated enough times in the course of these three overlong paragraphs I'm not. Quite the opposite in fact. So call it what it is. I know most of you are used to the vacuum at this point. All I'm saying is not to get too used to it. And thank you for getting this far into my self-indulgent leave-taking. And to please be around for the eventual return.  I promise it will be all manner of winful and epic.