Hey Crew.

Let me start by saying thank you to everyone who is still around and an extra thank you to those who asked about me in the comments, via email, and on social media. I got all your messages, but don’t think I replied to all of them. I’m humbled by those that still reach out. It means a lot to me.

My last post here was November 2022. A year and a half ago. I’ve disappeared from time to time, but never for that long. I do owe you an explanation. I won’t go into depth, but it’s been a long journey. Let’s step back in time a bit, shall we?

2020. The year the pandemic started. I’d put into motion where 2021 would be an epic year with monthly releases. I was writing nearly daily. Things were firing on all cylinders. Going into 2021, my writing had slowed as I focused on putting out the books and getting everything ready. Short stories, were coming out. Books were coming out. I was trying to generate excitement around what I was doing.

Eighteen months went by, but things didn’t take off much at all. I made roughly $150 in sales throughout the year, which is good, but it was in fits and spurts. I’d get people excited I had a new book out, but not many folk were buying the books. I’d done something wrong or I was growing impatient.

So, I switched gears. I started putting out the audio books. I put them up everywhere. YouTube, Spotify, the website. I started up Patreon. Sadly, this was a HUGE time sink and nothing came of it. I had a depressing number of views. I grew quite frustrated.

I stopped writing. I stopped posting on the blog. I stopped pretty much everything related to writing. I even stopped reading.

Then our landlord asked us to move out. He needed his house back. GAH! Bad timing. We had 6 months to find a place which was ample time, but it was still a stress we didn’t need at that moment.

After we moved, love the new place, we got involved with a lawsuit which I won’t go into details, but that settled to our benefit (totally unrelated to the old landlord or the move). That was more stress that wasn’t needed.

I kept thinking about getting back to writing, but couldn’t get my brain to focus. I started playing Minecraft. It was mind numbing and I didn’t have to think about anything, but I wasn’t feeling productive. So I started streaming my gaming sessions.

Then I discovered Fortnite. Yeah. I like Fortnite. I really like Fortnite. I started streaming that, but much like everything else I was doing, I wasn’t getting any traction at all on what I was doing.

Come December, 2023, my co-author, Mike Plested reached out. He’d also been in a rut and wanted to restart Jack Kane book 3. THIS is what I needed. Or so I thought.

The week after Mike contacted me and we spoke, I’d gotten carbon monoxide poisoning. An event I don’t go into as I’d had to relive this so many times. Suffice to say, I was overcome, nearly died, and was lucky to make it out the other end. Spent 4 hours in a hyperbaric chamber and am thankfully doing well.

Then the job decided everyone needed to work in one location. That location is on the opposite coast of where I live. By some blessing, I was one of a very few select people to be blessed with a teleworking position. But again, stress piled on top of stress.

Thankfully, much of that has been resolved. Finances are getting back in order. Life is getting back in order. I wrote a couple of thousand words in Jack Kane 3 and got that back to Mike so he can do the next chapter (that’s how we write those books). I’m in a far better headspace. I’ve got a lot to talk about and I finally feel like now is the time to start blogging again. I won’t promise daily, but let’s shoot for weekly.

Yes, it’s been a very long road with a lot of downs and very few ups. But the future is bright and I’m glad to be here to enjoy it. Things are in a very different perspective. I’m going to do what I enjoy, when I enjoy doing in, and slowly get back into writing, producing audio books, and doing it because I want to, not because I expect to suddenly have 10,000 people discover my work and buy my entire back catalog.

If you’d read this far, again, thank you for being here. I hope to keep doing this for a very long time. Sorry if this was a bit rambly, but we’re get our thought process back in order and get back into this blogging grove. It’s like riding a bike, right?

J.R.