Hey, everyone. I have a few news things to share. The most important thing on that list is the fact that I’m just burnt out. I would have mentioned this last week but I’ve only decided this in the last few days.

Finals are coming up soon, and I recently just got a new job on top of that (more details on that maybe soonish, because nothing is set in stone). I’ve stated my intentions to write Lisa 4 ahead of schedule several times, but I still haven’t even picked up Lisa 3 in over a week now, and I have no drive to continue, either. It’s a shame, yes, but writing 3,000 words of fiction a week is just not sustainable in my current mindset. I think forcing myself to write that much when I’m not in love with the words I’m producing is a bad move when I’ve already got so many other things going on.

There are also glaring flaws with the entire concept surrounding Lisa Stenton, and it mostly ties to the fact that it’s modern day. Flaws such as “where are all the cellphones and social media and whatnot” when I don’t want to make that a part of the story. Yet neither do I want to say that “technology doesn’t work around magic” like every other urban fantasy story, because that just makes things easy.

That said, I do still plan on continuing Lisa Stenton. It just won’t end up being one per month like I had hoped. I’m going to finish Lisa 3 when I stop feeling burnt out, and then maybe Lisa 4 after that. Now, in the past (November and December), I had taken a break from my blog and only posted Spear Gate excerpts once a week. I’m going to do the opposite this time. Only blog stuff: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I might still do Friday flash fiction pieces, but I’ll reserve the right to skip it, too.

Funny thing is, I’m not going through a rough time right now. In fact, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a while. That’s also sort of how I know I need to take a break from writing. Writing isn’t simply hard because I’m depressed/down/whatever. Writing is hard only because I’m very busy and I’m not currently in love with any of my projects.

Actually, I am very interested in two writing projects. But those are personal, and will (probably) never see the light of day, because while this blog is still more for me than anyone else and I’m very open about my personal thoughts and plans, there are still necessarily things that are best kept to myself.

Good news is on the horizon, though. And as something entirely unrelated, I placed in Diamond 4 in the ranked play of Heroes of the Storm, which is higher than I’ve ever been. I’m actually pretty confident that if I wasn’t going to school and could devote 4+ hours a day to it, I could play semi-competitively. Well, not competitively, obviously, but I like striving to be the best in everything I do. (For perspective, Diamond is in the top 8%-ish of players. The tier after that is “Master”, which is the top 1%. A little research pretty much states that the difference of these two ranks is more commitment than skill based.)

So, my apologies for the break in fiction. Don’t worry, though, I don’t intend this to last more than a month or two.