Hello again! I’m back! Did you miss me? I missed all of you. I wish I could say that I had a great break and I’m all rested and ready to go, but frankly, I’m burnt out and frazzled.

Nothing went according to plan over my newsletter break — not a single thing.

Let’s sum up my summer: I had a fairly uncomfortable traveling situation, three out of four of my parents had serious crises, and our air conditioner was broken for three weeks. (It still isn’t completely fixed!) On top of that, we had a hurricane and lost one of our cars in street flooding, plus the existential horror of the election cycle exacerbated everything. I was so stressed out that I could barely write. It was a bad time! I’ve been extremely anxious, to the point that I’ve been having panic attacks multiple times a week, which hasn’t happened in years.

I’m trying to use my tools. I’ve had a LOT of therapy, folks. I’m doing my best to show myself compassion and accept that I’m just not going to meet any self-imposed deadlines. Quite frankly, I need to stop expecting much of anything from myself for the duration. I’m not doing okay. I know I’ll be okay again one day, but I don’t know when that day will be.

I want to be clear: I did make minor progress on the book over the summer. That’s the tiny silver lining. Everything went sideways, but it wasn’t my usual procrastination and self-sabotage, so that’s a plus, I guess. I’m just not a robot who can stay completely chill in the face of grueling outside events. I’d love to be that guy, but I’m not.

So what comes next? Well, I’m already rehearsing for the annual holiday show, so that will use up a lot of my free time. The writing is going to be slow as a result. I’ve always struggled to focus on a single artistic pursuit, even though I know having multiple artistic interests slows me down. It’s not a personal failing; it’s simply a different, slower path.

I intend to continue working on my novel through the fall and winter, posting this newsletter, and rehearsing for a show. We have a mini-vacation planned next month, so I have something fun to look forward to, and Spooky Season is almost here. It’s not all bad! I’m already feeling better than I did most of the summer. The newsletter will be weekly (with some bonus issues for Spooky Season) through the end of October, and then biweekly through the end of the year.

Or at least that’s the plan! Keep your fingers crossed.

• I wrote a review for the clothing company Quince but didn’t feel it fit the newsletter (even though I often talk about clothes). If you’re interested, I posted it here.
• I’ve been back on my 18th-century cooking video kick, so check out Townsends on YouTube if that seems fun to you, too.
• When I mentioned Townsends to my friend Kitty, she recommended Time Travel Kitchen, a wry cooking blog where someone cooks historical recipes for her often skeptical family. It’s well-written, funny, has interesting recipe examples, and is highly entertaining. It was dormant for a long time, but the author started posting more regularly again this year.
• I’d say my favorite book from over the summer was Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree. It’s about an orc who gives up fighting to open a coffeehouse. It was sweet and funny, though our orc had some real obstacles to overcome. I didn’t know the cozy fantasy genre even existed, but I loved this book and want to read 27 more like it.

That’s it for now. OKAY, BYE! 🖤