I have been gone a ridiculously long time, haven't I? I apologize for dropping off the edge of the blogosphere without so much as leaving a note. There were several factors that went into my sudden departure, and since we're all friends here, I wanted to share with you all why my blog has become a ghost town.
As March rolled in, a feeling crept over me. It was slow and elusive and I didn't catch onto it for several weeks. By that time, my blog had gone without "real" posts for nearly three weeks. The symptoms of this feeling were lethargy, disinterest and general laziness. I just felt like I didn't have anything to contribute at those times.
I have been reading and not reviewing books since early March, and it was such an intoxicating feeling, to be able to read without a schedule. For the first time in three years, I read for pure enjoyment. I wasn't mentally taking notes while I read, I wasn't drafting what I was going to say about it in my review. I just read, and read, and read. I read slow sometimes, and I read fast. I read four books, or one. The point was
it didn't matter.
It was a really seductive feeling, and one that I couldn't seem to shake off. You know a strange side effect of this? I felt more confident when tweeting authors. When I finished Sarah Beth Durst's
Ice, I tweeted her and told her how much I liked it. I did it without much thought, or anxiety, which is the polar opposite of how I would approach talking to an author when I was actively blogging. Strange, yes?
Slowly, I started to get on the road towards getting back into blogging. But then my personal life blew up and demanded every bit of my attention and focus. Last August, my uncle was told he had two tumors in his brain, and in September he had them surgically removed. The removal of the first tumor went perfectly, but when he had the second one removed, he never fully recovered. Since then, the tumors have returned and spread, even with radiation. My mother, having experience, has been taking care of him since November.
His condition has been degrading, and my family and I have been making the seven-hour trip to Kentucky to stay with him and help my mom. We came at Easter for a five day stint, but then came back again last Saturday, and now we're staying for several weeks. I had planned to come to Kentucky full-time as a student in August. This rapid rescheduling has forced everyone to figure out a new routine, and is also why I haven't been able to get back to blogging.
I don't know what my new routine will be, or even if I'll be able to fully get back to blogging. I may be able to post reviews occassionally, but my guess now is that I won't. Because in addition to the lethargy and being in Kentucky, I'm also doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month and entering several pieces to Figment.com contests. I've started a new writing blog,
Amelia Robinson Writes, as a means to share my writing and focus more on my career.
With all these things taking their toll, I cannot say at this time how things will play out. With my uncle's health declining and college coming this fall, my writing picking up and going back and forth between states, it may be a while before I can get back to the internet full-time.
There are a few obligations I have to fill -- look for my review of
Dark Triumph coming soon, as well as a blog tour stop from Christian Schoon, author of
Zenn Scarlett -- but otherwise, I may be gone for a while. But if somehow something lets up -- if my uncle stabilizes, if I move to Kentucky permanently ahead of schedule -- then I may start reviewing again. I built up quite a backlog of books to review on this hiatus. And meanwhile, I may post rants, which take less mental and physical energy than reviews.
Thank you, everyone, for your neverending support and love. I think I'll need quite a bit of both to get through thesenext few months.
