Where Do We Go From Here?

Screenshot from Buffy: Once More With Feeling

 It's been a long time since I posted anything on my blog. Are blogs even a thing any more? 

After a particularly brutal weekend of comments over on social media, I thought I'd finally do something I've been meaning to do for a very long time and step back from that addiction to doomscrolling that is Twutter and Facebork. It's an addiction, and I know it's going to be hard - I mean, what else do I do?

A couple of months ago, I deleted a couple of apps from my phone (both themed 'candy crush' clones). I was on, like, level 2500 on one of them, and I used to constantly play in the background while I was watching TV and stuff. Probably a sign of something - my lack of being able to concentrate on anything for any length of time, and getting bored with everything incredibly quickly. Deleting these apps was a big step - I found myself actually paying more attention to what I was watching or doing, and taking in more information. 

So that was stage one.

Stage two, I haven't been able to bring myself to delete my social media presence - after all, I may want to do something on there to promote a book coming out, or to launch August's ninth #RPGaDAY. Heck, I may skip it this year, or leave it in the hands of the mighty Runeslinger. We'll see when it gets a bit closer. Getting rid of social media is something I've been thinking about for a long time - it just seems to be a terrible waste of my time (Twutter has become my replacement for moving coloured gems around the screen sometimes when I'm getting a little distracted). Most of the people I'm connected to on both major platforms I don't actually know - and I still get friend requests from people I've never heard of before. 

I want to use Facebork to keep in touch with my friends - the ones I actually know, used to go to school with, family, things like that. But instead, it quickly became a marketing tool for myself as a 'brand'. I shudder at the thought of that. And yes, I did it to myself. The whole "Autocratik" thing. 

On the subject of AUTOCRATIK, I see a lot of comments about Autocratic governments and dictators - that was never what the name was about. Originally, I wanted to do something for myself, and I created the comics brand "Autocratik for the Masses" as a pun on R.E.M.'s album "Automatic for the People". Then the comic publishing kinda died off, and I thought nothing of it. 

I'd formed a creative collective with some friends to produce a webseries and other comedy sorts, and when that fell apart horribly, and I wanted to disassociate myself from it all, I thought back to the old comic publishing days, and the name Autocratik leaped out. It wasn't because I was a dictator, it was just that I wanted to do things my way. I wasn't going to force people into my way of thinking or doing things, especially as the only person working for me was me. 

Anyway, the upshot of this ramble is that my social media presence is going to be minimised, but I've just paid to renew the domain on this site for a couple more years - so what do I do with the blog? I've kinda neglected it for the last couple of months, but I've been crazy busy. 

So I hope to post here a little more often, not expecting people to actually read it, but I'll still use it to post about what I'm working on, what I'm writing/drawing, what movies I've watched recently, and so on. 

Meanwhile, if you need to get in touch, you know where you'll find me.