Hello from Florida. We’re here. We’re set up. We’re riding, I’m teaching, I’m occasionally running out to grab something from Target or Lowe’s or the tack shops that we forgot. I’m exercising, I’m clawing my way out of my inbox, I’m making food and walking my dogs. I’m living my life. And I’m happy and healthy and well.

But man oh man, I am not writing.

At least I’m not writing well. I’m working on three different blogs, and I’m happy with none of them. The secret to my writing success over the years has been to never have a deadline, never be assigned a subject, and hardly ever take a second pass at anything. It’s why I can’t do it for a living, by the way, because that’s a pretty poor recipe for reliable job performance. But there’s a trope I like: my approach to writing is like a fart. If I have to force it, it’s probably shit.

And here I am, forcing it. 

I’ve had three different people ask me if I was ok because I hadn’t published a blog lately. And it’s funny, because I am, truly, fine. It’s also funny because, sometimes, I do my best writing when I’m really distraught. And it’s not like I haven’t had things to be distraught about – staffing challenges, financial challenges, the normal chaos of running one’s own business. But the longer I do this, the thicker the crust I’ve built to keep these things from really making me nutsy. The awfulness of 2016-2018 for me made me tougher, for sure! That which does not kill us and all, bla bla bla. It’s not like 2020 and 2021 haven’t been horribly wretched for a whole lot of people on a whole lot of fronts. I’ve just gotten better at handling it. And as such, apparently, I’ve had less to write about.

(Yes, I recognize the scary universe-tempting that I’m doing. I lean into chaos.)

So don’t worry about me. I’m here, going about my business, living the safest life I can (get your boosters and wear a mask, ya filthy animals!), and just also writing very, very poorly. When I get my writing mojo back, you’ll know it, because these pieces have the potential to be really quite good. They’re just definitely not right now.