Hello everyone!

My six-month hiatus did bear some fruit, as the book is at least two chapters closer to being done, but mostly it took some pressure off of me to write every week during a particularly nightmarish wedding season at the winery.

There’s been at least one wedding every single week since May, and it still hasn’t stopped, but the restaurant is winding down a bit with the end of summer and even though our fall offerings and harvest season vibes are on point (if I do say so myself,) autumn in Portland means the rainy season. That means losing a quarter of our dining space- and our diners.

Every weekend of the last six months, I’ve been hoarding every moment I didn’t need to work or think about working like they were the last roll of toilet paper in a bomb shelter, ready to go for the throat of anyone who suggested they might need a few squares because they’re running out of pages in the Twilight series. I made time to write for sure, but energy reserves was another story entirely.

If I’m being honest, part of it was the need for a “cave day” situation- locking myself up and away from anyone and anything that might distract me from getting the goddamned manuscript done. Bills still had to be paid though. Work needed to get done, and my wife has a pretty strong claim on her husband existing for her at least part of the time.

The other part is that writing- or at least trying to write well- is fucking work, and some of the book was a lot more work to write than I thought. It meant digging through some buried experiences, putting myself back in bad places, and examining every line of those sections through the lens of “do I really want to cover this? Can’t I just skip it?”

The answer was always going to be “No, I can’t skip it” because I want this book to mean something. I want it to be helpful to others, and a story worth seeing oneself in. Stories have struggles, dark moments, and rough points. If taking my reader on a walking tour of my metaphorical “Belly of the Whale” moments at previous jobs makes even one reader someday who’s facing the same thing go “I’m not alone, he made it, so can I” then job fucking accomplished.

The book isn’t done though. Job NOT accomplished yet. If that’s the case, and I suddenly have more time and energy with the winery winding down, why return to the blog? I’m my own boss in this joint- why not just go on radio silence until the book is done and I can return to you with a dramatic flourish, a pre-order link, and fresh paperback wisdom like Moses with a literary agent?

Reason #1 is simple- I’m still fucking tired, and working on a book without a rock-hard deadline set by someone other than myself is going to keep sliding backward into time. Especially because, as I said before, it’s not the kind of job I want to rush.

Reason #2 is because writing ANYTHING on a deadline- even a weekly one like this blog- keeps me writing and keeps me in practice. It keeps the mental connections and the voice-brain-hand connection limber. This stuff is work after all, and you need to stay in shape and in the mindset of someone who is doing exactly what it is you want to do. Blogging regularly made me feel like a writer simply because I was writing regularly, hell or high water.

Reason #3 is only a little sappy- I missed it. I’ve more or less rendered myself a digital hermit over the six months, only seeing a Facebook or Instagram feed maybe once a week and under specific conditions. The world still feels like it’s slipping sideways, and while I have loved- needed– to retreat into myself to keep a grip on my life, I miss being able to tell stories to people. I miss being able to take my time crafting a story about everything I see and hear, what it means, and what it can mean.

I need to keep telling stories in order to stay good at telling stories. I know some folks have been reading this blog in my absence. Thanks for that. I’ll be back on the weekends- have I got some shit to tell you…

Stay Classy,