I imagine most folks reading this already know why, but just in case -- or for posterity, should this be found by an interested literary agent or a production assistant doing background for a biopic on my life or a post-apocalyptic historian looking for records from The Before Times -- here's what happened: I was moving right along with the second draft of my second manuscript when my fiancee started having health problems. Then those problems became more serious. Then they became "cancer here, there and everywhere and after a second, third and fourth opinion no one knows what kind of cancer this is" serious.
We moved up the wedding date and married over the summer. Needless to say, I put the manuscript and this blog on hold to focus on her treatment. She fought so hard and never gave up, but unfortunately the cancer had other ideas and she passed in November.
I was a mess, no surprise there. And I hadn't written a single word since then.
What is a writer who doesn't write? I'd been asking myself that a lot lately, and haven't been thrilled with the answers. The other weekend someone asked me what I do. I opened my mouth to respond and absolutely nothing came out. What do I do? Tend to the kids, churn through the day job, lose myself in video games and YouTube videos and cocktails and, what? Bide my time til my number is up? That's too rudderless an existence, and too bleak.
I need to start writing again. I want to start writing again, but writing what? The idea of returning to my second manuscript -- which was already a fairly heavy examination on the stages of grief -- was (and remains) ridiculous. No, I needed something simple. Something comforting.
And then it came to me. So while I'm going to shutter up the House of Nolahn for now, you all can join me at my new rudder.
