This blog has been inactive for almost a year and a half, since April 2017. I didn’t intend to let it lapse. But, well, life happens.
Let me explain.
My father passed away in May 2017, not long after my last post. I decided to take a short hiatus just to try to catch up on things that I had put aside. I did not realize how many things there were. Not just writing and publishing tasks, but a whole bunch of other things relating to finances, house maintenance, and family matters.
If you’ve been a caregiver, you know how you have to put some of your own things on hold. And, on top of that, even when you get help from others (and I had a lot of help), being a long-term caregiver wears you down and wears you out before you realize it. It’s hard. You get frustrated, maybe short-tempered. You push really hard to get your regular work done, your job responsibilities, and other things. But it’s hard not to get the feeling that things are slipping away into a kind of chaos and limbo.
By the time September 2017 rolled around, I had made hardly any headway on my backlog of chores and tasks. Then Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irma rolled through and wrecked my property. No house damage, thank goodness, but a big tree fell and tore up my neighbor’s fence, snapped limbs on neighboring trees, and smashed my blueberry bushes. If you are a newsletter subscriber, you saw some of the pictures. The tree was not conveniently located for crews to get to without taking out other trees, so I tackled the job myself.
I only just finished that work, including fence repairs, a little over a month ago, almost a year after the storm. I also had lectures, author events, marketing tasks, and other things going on the whole while. So I’ve had very little time to do extra writing.
But I do have a plan. And here it is:
I’ve got some draft posts that I’ll be releasing soon. I might also revisit some old posts and update them.
Most importantly, I’m going to convert some of the articles and essays that I’ve shared with my Newsletter subscribers into posts for this blog. That way, if you are not a Newsletter subscriber (And, um, why aren’t you?), but just want to get a sample of my non-fiction writing and commentary, you’ll be able to find some of that here.
There. That’s the gist of this update. So stay tuned!
Thanks!
–William
TYOTRD Website