Summer Vacation

Time for a break

Created on Midjourney

As those of you who regularly read my newsletter will know, I’ve been trying to restructure my work to both decrease my stress and find a way to support myself financially. Part of that has included decreasing the number of times a week I publish stories.

Over the last few months, I’ve found myself continuing to feel stressed and more depressed than I have in a long time. I’ve realized that a number of factors continue to contribute to this.

The pandemic and other world events have weighed heavily on me. I continue to struggle with long COVID on top of pre-existing health conditions, feeling relatively healthy (for me) for a few days or weeks, then relapsing and being unable to work at all for days or weeks.

The learning curve for my online store has been and continues to be steep. Then there’s the creation of designs, the research required before listing a product, the creation of the product with my print providers, and creating the listing itself. For each product.

I realized recently that I have, over the last 35 months delivered nearly 700 posts to readers with no real breaks other than for illness. I’ve had a book series in limbo, with three books complete and a final, fourth book, nearly through the first draft for that entire time.

I have to be realistic. For the next few weeks, I need to take some real time to myself. Without guilt. Without a nagging feeling that I should be writing or creating or working on my shop. Just time off. Then I need to reevaluate how to move forward.

I’m going to take the rest of the summer off. Today, I’m teeing up an old subscriber story to publish each week on Sunday to carry readers through the summer. I know that some writers just shut down when they take time off, but I at least want to offer something.

I’m considering, when I return, whether or not to serialize the books I’ve already written here on Eclectic Ink. I’d really like your input on whether or not that would interest you. It would free up time for me to work on finishing my current work in progress (I hope). I would still write some original short fiction, though not as often. I’m including a poll, and, as always, welcome comments.