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Sorry, for the long silence, guys, but I needed it. I needed to go away and not write for awhile. This space of time has been the longest I’ve ever gone without writing, in my adult life. I even fell off of Twitter and Facebook. I finally realized that my muse and I needed a full, and complete break: no blogs, no newsletters, no short stories, no novels; nothing. We needed to rest.

I have finally begun to make notes again. The muse is peeking out. Ideas have begun to capture me again. I’ve actually written the most poetry of my life. Some of them didn’t even suck. *laughs* The poetry is too personal to share right now; maybe someday. I was loathe to say what my muse and I have picked first for the next book project, because once I do, you guys are very eager to have it done, and something about all that energy coming my way can inhibit the process, as if the more you want the book, the harder it is to write it. Maybe it’s my own issue, but whatever the cause it has made me reluctant to share, but I’ve decided to be a big girl and say, screw it! Merry – I’m making along notes on the next Merry book. She and I needed the long hiatus.

I’m not sure she’ll be ready to go in time for her story to be the next book published, but I can tell you the babies will be on the outside, and I’ve missed Frost and Doyle, too. Beyond that bear with me and let the book grow naturally. I’m trying to write on a schedule that feels more natural to me and my characters.

Once upon a time, my muse caught my hand and dragged me, stumbling, to my feet, until she taught me to run at her side, and then it was my turn to grab her hand and pull her along. For a time she kept up, and ran with me, but eventually she slowed, stumbled, and just refused to go any further. She would peek in at me from time to time and the characters and the strength of my own writing carried me for awhile, but eventually I paid the price for writing ahead of my muse.

What is that price? A profound and utter tiredness. A weariness and lack of joy that spread from my writing and tried to eat my life. I’d worked too long and too hard to let that happen, so I started meditating almost daily, clinging to my spiritual path like a shipwreck survivor to the last piece of debris that was keeping them afloat. I found the gym in a major way. I dropped fifty pounds and added some muscle; the weight has stayed off for over three years and I’m hoping to add more muscle. My husband, Jonathon, and I renewed and reinvented our marriage and our family in a way that worked better for both of us. We both went back to therapy. Jon started to learn to knit and play the bass guitar. We found Pilar and Carri; family of choice who help make things better even on days when we all hit issues at once; its still better. The four of us have worked our issues and we communicate like sons of bitches. Yay, us! Trinity, our daughter, is thriving in our new extended family with Tia Pilar, Carri, and a loving and close relationship with Jon’s parents, Mary and Art; it’s a team effort.

One thing I had to do was redefine what my job was, and what I deserved as a life. I am a writer, a novelist, and blessedly successful, but that is not all I am. It was almost with a shock, that I realized I’d forgotten how to sit peacefully in a room by myself and stare out a window, or simply read other people’s books for pleasure. I’d forgotten how to enjoy my own company, and since everyone spends the majority of their life with themselves, that was a problem. I’ve regained that sense of contentment in my own company and am much better for it.

I have also discovered friends that helped teach me how to truly play. Some who started this process for me have fallen along the way, as if they’ve forgotten the very lessons of fun and frolic they taught me, but that is their choice, for me I choose joy. The joy of my work, of my family, of my marriage, of my friends, of those closer to me than friends that leave me scrambling for vocabulary to describe how much they mean to me.

I continue to learn that concrete things help ground me and keep me happy. Lifting weights is so certain; you can either lift that weight, or you can’t. A fence is either strong enough to hold the yaks inside it, or it’s not. (Yes, I said, yaks. They belong to friends of ours. Eventually I’ll write that blog.) One of the most valuable things I learned was that I needed things to balance the light and air of my job. All art is ambiguous – one person will love a book, and the next will hate the very same book, often for the very same reasons, ironically. I’ve had negative fans complain that I was too nice, no one was that nice. When people are angry at you for being too nice, it’s time to step back and stop listening to either side of the debate. It was time to pull inward and find out how I felt, what I thought separate from the clamor. I honestly didn’t know what would happen when I came back up for air, all I knew for certain as that if I didn’t take some time for me, I wasn’t going to make it. You can’t run ahead of your muse forever, because eventually you get lonely and then you get lost.

My muse caught up with me. She and I are walking hand in hand now – sometimes she goes off doing mysterious muse things, but she comes back refreshed, renewed, with new inspiration to share. Sometimes I go away to play – with friends, with family, the wilderness, with animals, with just me. I’ve rediscovered a love of the outdoors and am about to reacquaint myself with horses. I’m a week away from a renewed and even more serious commitment to my fitness program. Jon and I have two more trips already planned; one is business, but we’ve managed to add a day of fun on the side. I will not forget that I need a balance between work and play. That I need a life outside of the computer, because it’s real life that helps fuel the imaginary one. I’m not talking research for the books, I’m talking about things that refresh and renew all of me. I’ve found some surprising things help balance between fantasy and reality. I have gone where spirit has guided me, sometimes kicking a little, but I have moved on faith and belief. Faith in Deity at first and then faith in myself and Deity. Belief worked the same way. I have moved forward blindly and done the ol’ “let go and let God (and Goddess)”. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, but it has been worth every step, even when I cried more than I smiled. Walking your path doesn’t mean you don’t hurt, it means the pain is worth the progress. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to remake it, and that includes yourself, or it did for me. There were moments when I wept for an easier road, but in the end I would not trade my path for anyone else’s. It is mine and the traveling of it has made me who I am, and continues to shape and remold me into the best, happiest, most productive, most playful me, I’ve ever been. So Mote It Be.