It’s been such a long time since my last blog post, that I’ve nearly forgotten how to write one. I have been meaning to blog again, but I kept putting it off, thinking it hadn’t been so long, but I’ve just checked and it’s been over three months since my last post. Oops.

What a strange time in my life these last three months have been. A lot has happened and I’ve been up to my neck in transitioning. Also, it’s strange that you can look up and A FOURTH OF A YEAR has gone by and you’ve just been ??????-ing, putting out proverbial fires, and trying to remember how to sleep.

Well, here I am at last, back to writing a blog post in an unfamiliar Starbucks since the wifi in my life is unpredictable. However, I’ve changed continents since I last wrote. I am now once again in the United States of America. People keep asking me if I’m glad to be back, but I only have a complicated answer for that. It’s nice to see friends and family again, and I do feel that this is the right place for us to be right now, and we had solid reasons for coming back when we did.

But I miss Europe and keep checking on flights back even though I know I won’t be going back quite so soon. There’s a part of me that just feels at home and centered when I’m walking between the old stone buildings, my hood up against the rain and wearing a scarf against the cold (I do love to complain about the cold).

I finally feel like my head has stopped spinning and I have real things to say in a blog post instead of ideas thrown at the internet like noodles at the wall – some of which aren’t done cooking yet.

My life right now is being conducted from the inside of a minivan we have named Felix, after the Felix Felicis potion in Harry Potter. The name was chosen because the potion is gold and so is the van, and also because the potion grants the drinker good luck. We took out the seats and converted the van into a camper. We finally got a mattress so now all that’s left is to pick up some plates and bowls and we are set. After the holidays we will be taking off on a road trip, starting in the Southwest of the US. I heart me some cactus, so I’m excited to be back in the land of dust, prickles, deadly creatures, and scrubby attempts at trees.

I’ve been doing a lot of getting organized. As you might could tell, I have a very active imagination and tend to start a lot of projects, preferably all at the same time. This is great because I am incapable of being bored, but it also means that when I take a year to go backpacking through Europe, I don’t have the time to finish said projects.

As a result, at this moment I have seven manuscripts at various stages of completion, plus four children’s books, and a couple more ideas/outlines.

I really want to finish these projects. Not to publish them right away, but to have them completed and sitting, waiting potential. In order to do that, I’ve got to be more disciplined and practice writing. A great way to do that is by enforcing deadlines, but deadlines only work with some form of accountability.

SO I’ve decided to make this practicing very public and share my writing in the form of a monthly zine, which will debut in January. This will make me a better writer in about a hundred different ways.

When I went skydiving, the jump master (the man strapped to my back in charge of not letting me die) said we had to land running to keep up the momentum from the drop. If it goes well, we would run in a weird four-legged unit. If it doesn’t go quite as well, we would wipe out. If it goes poorly, we may break a leg.

Coming back to the US felt a lot like that. I landed running, and didn’t wipe out or break a leg (both when skydiving and when we got back to the States), but that momentum was nothing to sneeze at. It’s good to catch my breath.

In summary: all the writing, all the changes, all the travel, and all as usual.