I’ve been retreading some old ground lately.
Some of it’s nostalgia. Watching old TV shows I like to watch, remembering things through chance find that I had almost forgotten (like Making Fiends). But more than that, I’m going back to some of the ideas and passions that fascinated me a number of years ago.
I guess it started with NaNoWriMo. I made my novel project for that month the redrafting of my high-school first novel (which holds the place as my first or my third book depending on when you ask me). It had been years since I had thought about those characters, those scenarios. Some things were familiar, and played out as they had before. Others changed, grew deeper or at least different. The reasons are obvious, I’m not the same guy I was in high-school. I’ve had more experiences, refined my writing process, and have new ideas about what’s interesting to explore.
And yet I still find myself coming back to a few old standbys.
Recently it’s been Fractals. It’s been years since I’ve seriously done any fractal programming or research but as those who follow the blog regularly will know, I’ve gotten back into them with a vengeance. I’m even considering having a Friday Fractal of the month (or fortnight) feature on the blog to showcase some of the behind the scenes work I’m doing at the moment. I don’t know what brought me back exactly (a NOVA special and a certain ridiculously tall writer friend of mine might have had something to do with it), but I find that even though that particular passion has laid dormant for so many years, it has lost none of its vigor.
There’s always a push as a writer and as a person to keep trying something new. To embrace a new project, or new TV show, or a new passion. But revisiting old thoughts is necessary as well, and can often lead to new ideas and projects. Nothing is ever too old to be reconsidered.
What things do you keep coming back to? What is that experience like for you?
[BTW] : Ben Trube, Writer 
One of my passions outside of writing, a fairly new one actually, is photomanipulation. I stumbled across deviantart.com and thought, “Wow! I could never do that!” But then, I found some stock photos on there and started playing with photoshop and picnik.com (which is dead, so now I use ipiccy.com) and now I’m hooked! I even won an art contest on there! It’s just something fun that gets my mind off writing enough to clear my head for more writing, and it’s still art so I don’t feel like I’m “slacking off”.
I like your fractuals, btw. I think you did one on Labyrinth, which was really exciting for me.