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Mega Crash

So, it's been a couple of months since I've checked in here -- not even so much as a log-in. I suppose explanations are in order.

First of all: No, nothing happened to me. No health issues, no life issues, no monsters crashing in through the front windows to send me screaming out the back door.

Okay, from my point of view, there was kind of a monster ...

Like a lot of things in life, creativity is cyclical. I think over the years I've done pretty well at providing daily content around here. Yes, I've taken some weeks off, usually with prior notice. That need for a break is one of the regular cycles. Comes about once a year or so.

But there's also a longer, deeper, nastier cycle. A mega-crash. It doesn't happen all that often -- only once every couple of years -- but it has happened with me before. It's the kind of cycle where I don't just take a break from writing. It's the kind of cycle where I scrape off everything to do with creativity and invention and don't come back.

Let me put it this way: If I was the kind of person who took, uh, "stimulants" and/or "depressants", this is the kind of crash that where I would crawl into a bottle or up inside a needle. That's how far away I need to get from the writing game. Fortunately, I never acquired a taste for those particular kinds of vices, so I find other ways of coping. I'll leave it to you to judge whether Civilization is a healthier habit than whiskey, and Minecraft a safer addiction than morphine. Suffice it to say that I am now a much better player of both those games.

It also happens that this kind of mega-crash occurs without warning. It starts as nothing worse than severe procrastination, and in this case it was a couple weeks or before I even recognized what was going on, at which point (I have to confess) the crash had gotten so deep and so hard that I didn't even give enough of a shit to come back and post a short "Gone Fishing" notice. It was that bad.

But about six weeks ago I started to come out of it, and started to get my feet under me again. I had to rebuild my confidence and stamina, practically from scratch, though, and instead of coming straight back here -- when I had no confidence that the return would even take -- I spent that time writing some storylines. Getting myself in shape.

So, am I back now?

I'm still shaky enough, and humble enough, that I can't promise there won't be any hiccups going forward. In the meantime, I have written enough content to fill about four weeks, and I'll start publishing it tomorrow. During that time I hope to finish rebuilding. I am most definitely back enough that if I feel the ground going out from beneath me again, I will say something.

I know I have left some people in the lurch with this disappearance, and I am all about making amends and catching up. I have a giant backlog of emails I need to shovel out, and that may take some time. For now, I beg your patience.