I’ve been MIA for a while, I know. I had plans and I had road maps and I had dates marked on the calendar.

And then…I stopped.

I mean, I didn’t stop going to work, or eating, or sleeping. I just tied myself up in a mixed ball of depression and panic attacks, flavored with a slight hint of despair. The new job kept me busy and full of purpose — my department was pretty much a mess, so thank goodness for a great staff and time to figure things out! — but only just enough to keep me getting up out of bed every morning.

I think the problem is that I lost sight of my goal.

And that goal, no matter how much I like my day!job and feel it benefits the students we serve at this uni, is to become a full-time professional author.

I am, admittedly, already a professional author. I kind of slammed through that goal post without realizing it, honestly. Suddenly one day I have books published under my own name! Fans who like my work! Friends who are fellow authors and editors who work with me as a colleague (and not a wanna-be)! I feel immensely privileged to have that much.

But it was never my goal just to get published. Never. My dream, which got moth-balled here for a few months, is to live the life of a full-time writer. That’s what I want, and I will never feel completely successful until I hit that mark, permanently.

Part of the situation for me, though, is that I do have a day!job, and it sucks up about 12 hours of my day between working and commuting. On top of that my unreasonably high expectations of myself spread me out too thin. There IS such a thing as “too much of a good thing” and by trying to stay active in too many social media outlets while finding time to write, edit, and maybe eat dinner I just blew out all the gaskets.

So I’m simplifying. I’m redoing the website (long story there, but I fired the “friend” who was supposed to redesign it because turns out, she’s a racist, misogynistic homophobe. OMG. Yeah, long story for another time), and instead of tracking across multiple channels I’m cutting back.

I’m mostly dropping interacting on facebook; I have a personal one that sucks up enough time, and it’s mostly for friends. As a business choice FB has become less helpful of late, so I’m not missing much. I’m still there if you want to follow, just be aware it’s secondary for me.

I’m much more accessible on twitter, which I use daily and post regularly. Please find and follow!

Mostly though I’m moving most regular activity to my fandom-oriented tumblr, The Den. As most of you know I’ve been mikes-grrl in fandom for years now, and this tumblr was originally just for fangirl squee. But as time goes by it has become my main interaction online with fellow fans and friends, and since I’ve been pretty open about Mikey being Cooper West and vice versa, I figured it made better sense than to keep trying to revive my CW tumblr which has languished and never had much personality to begin with.

tl;dr Follow me on tumblr!!!!

Watch for weekly blog posts here, though, and eventually I will be doing that newsletter so sign up on my email list to keep up on behind-the-scenes stuff!

A huge thanks goes out to the people who’ve kept me sane through these rough patches, like candesgirl and tawg and selenay936 and christineB and davidA. And also to my editors at Dreamspinner, who have been incredibly supportive despite the fact that I have two books in the production line that need attention. Thanks, folks. Thank you so much!