So, it turns out my younger brother has Congestive Heart Failure. Yeah. He’s currently in the CICU at a local hospital. He’s on the mend, but he has a lifetime of medication to look forward to as well as a new low sodium (yuck!) diet.

This is the sort of thing life throws at you when you least expect it. The kind of curve ball that makes my writing take a back seat to the rest of my life.

I’m sharing this with you not as an excuse for not updating the site. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m sharing because I’m not a hypocrite. You need to know that, whatever your writing goals, life will eventually intrude… and the only thing you can do is let it.

I’ll be honest. I couldn’t write anything worth reading right now if I had a million dollars on the line. My life is, for this brief moment, too chaotic for my art to be in the driver’s seat. On the other side of this mountain, when there is some distance between me and this stress, I’m sure it will be cathartic to use it in some way… to work it into a story or a poem. Right now, however, I need to circle the wagons and be there for my family.

Sure, this will put me a bit behind on some of my goals. The new book might be delayed a month or two, but you know what? That’s okay. I’m only human, and being human isn’t so bad.

When life intrudes on your work, and I mean the big, all-hands-on-deck kind of stuff, you do what you need to do for yourself and your family. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes… the story really can wait.

J