[Posted originally at Dreamwidth, my personal blog. Reposting it here (with slight editing) as an update.]

Yes, folks! I’m still here among the living. I’ve been spending all this time focusing on finishing off In My Blue World (which I’m FINALLY going to drop in March! Wooohoo!) and preparing myself for the revision work for Diwa & Kaffi (yes, I’ve decided that’s going to be the title until further notice). I’ve also been enjoying the extended semi-hiatus from the internets, focusing more on offline projects and personal things. It’s been long delayed and much needed.

I’ve been tempted more than a few times to return to the blogging schedule that I’ve held over the last couple of years, but I’m holding off. As much as I truly enjoyed it, it would often drain me. I ended up repeating myself on more than a few occasions, often without realizing. Some days I’d have all kinds of things to talk about, but other days (especially near the end there) I was really straining to come up with semi-original content. 

But I also wanted to move on. I’ve been blogging about writing and music for years now, some years more consistently than others, and after a great personal banner year of music collecting and novel writing, I felt it was time for me to shift my focus. It’s like when I talk about the Yankee Candle/Belfry years: I absolutely loved the schedule that afforded me the time to relax as well as improve my writing, but that could only last for so long. I may be a creature of habit and want to stick with that sort of thing for years at a time, I’m also a creature of wanting to shake things up. I also happen to love the idea of starting a completely new lifestyle, whatever it may be. I get to a point where I realize I’ve gone as far as I can with what I’m doing, and I need to move on. There’s varying reasons for that — I’ve exhausted my interest, I’ve moved on, my tastes have changed/shifted, and so on. Sometimes it’s a deeply personal thing that will change my life, sometimes it’s just an ephemeral thing.

(Speaking of which, I could go on about how hard it is to shift to that new lifestyle while attempting to shed old habits, ideas and so on, but I’ll save that for another entry.)

I’m still a music-collecting geek and a writer, and I highly doubt those two things will be changing any time soon. But what I’ve realized over the past month and a half is that I still have a long way to go if I want to make the changes I do want to make. Sliding back into old habits and schedules will not help me, as again — I can be quite the creature of habit.  I’m going out of my way NOT to return to things like that, as it’s the only way I’ll be able to get to where I DO need to be.

That said, Walk in Silence is going to remain on hiatus for just a little while longer, while I get my writing and personal priorities taken care of, and while I decide what I’m going to do with it. In the meantime, I’ll be making more steady (and more personal) appearances at my Dreamwidth account. Thanks again for hanging around for so long!

So yeah, I’ve been busy. Day Job has been testing my patience the last few weeks but otherwise it’s same old same old. I’m on the hopefully last go-round of revision for In My Blue World and am planning for a March release for that. Then it’s into first-level revision for the Apartment Complex story.

In other news, I’ve bought myself a Gretsch Electromatic (thank you, Tall Toad Music!) and I am absolutely in love with this thing. It fits quite nicely in my hands and plays just wonderfully. I’ve been recording lo-fi demos on my phone for my Drunken Owl project, which I’m hoping to expand on soon.

Other than that? Not too much to report. January had some really cool music releases, and perhaps in a few days I’ll do a quick rundown of it all. But yeah, I’m treating this hiatus as a much-welcomed vacation from the internets. I’m still floating around on Twitter now and again, and I’ve been having some personal conversations with friends, but other than that, I don’t have any huge project plans on the boards. Even my whiteboard schedule is still blank!

So…not sure when this hiatus will end, but I promise I’ll try to be back soon enough. Thanks for waiting!