Change.

That’s the reason I’ve been silent on this blog for a bit.

Plenty has been going on in my life. Major things, positive things. But a lot of it is of a personal nature—things best shared over warm cups of coffee, or around a crackling fire pit, but not so much in a public forum. You know, the richness of life which requires conversation, eye contact, Q&A, backstory, body language, and laughter-spiked discussion.

I’m in a period of a hella lot of transition.

And while I know I should (right?) be blogging & keeping my presence here active, that simply can’t happen. Because life. Because sometimes we have to pull back, keep parts of ourselves for ourselves, and curate what we let others see.

I felt a little guilty about it at first—not sharing. I felt like I wasn’t following the rules of posting regularly & keeping my blog active—all those sorts of things we hear over and over. I even worried that this absence would hinder my goals as a writer by not having a structured, frequently updated place for folks to come check me out & whatnot.

I could have forced myself to post things. But, with the real stuff being my true focus behind-the-scenes, I also knew any posts would only be placeholders lacking genuine passion or insight. That, I realized, would just be a waste.

So I did what I needed to do. For me. As an actual person who (surprise!) also lives an existence filled with non-writerly, person-like things.

And I guess that’s the point of this post. Writers, like everyone else, are actual people with families, and friends, and lives, and problems, and celebrations, and times of transitions and change. Yes, we need that sacred “online presence” so agents and editors can see who we are outside of our polished words. But we also need to breathe & focus on the other important things in our lives.

Living in a fish bowl is an interesting thing. Strangers watch us swim. They make judgments based on only what they see. Of course, we do it to strangers, too.

Every now and then, we need to tuck in our fins and shimmy into the privacy of our little underwater castles.

I expect to be in mine for the next month as the culmination of all this personal change is happening. I’ll keep poking my fishy head out on Twitter, etc. I don’t feel guilty or worried about it anymore. This is what I need for me at this time. It’s the right thing to do.

So I should end with a moral-of-the-story or an actionable item, right? Isn’t that a rule? Okay. I’ll totally try.

Slip into your castle when you need to. The outside world will be there when you get back. A bit of respite won’t ruin everything you’ve worked for. It won’t hurt your momentum towards your professional goals. In fact, taking time to take care of yourself is probably the absolute best thing you can do.

*does cool stuff inside castle, where you can’t see. neener neener*

If you find this invisible ink, you deserve a peek into my castle window. My beau and I are liquidating our antiques business, leaving our loft/workshop/storefront behind, and moving into a cute, little house a few towns over. A separate, 20-year relationship is making its final transition—which feels like a mix of freedom and loss, but is positive overall. And I’m doing an experimental writing thing, using a Twitter account run by the M.C. of a fun, ridiculously long titled idea for my next book. Plus other things. neener neener again.