Well well well. It’s been awhile! I kicked off my 2016 by taking a month away from all forms of social media, and tried to be generally minimal on the computer. Partly because I was putting the final touches on my next book and wanted total focus for that, but also because I wanted to see how it felt to actually do the thing I’ve been saying I’m going to do for the last five years, i.e. take extended time off from that stuff, 100%, no peeking.

How did it feel? It felt great, actually, and still does. It took a couple of days not to itch to check, and about a week or so to stop composing tweets and captions in my head, then from there it’s been smooth sailing. Not that I became the perfect person I thought I might, but my general anxiety decreased noticeably, and best of all my days feel much longer because I’m not frittering away hours here and there on a semi-daily basis. The days also feel more mentally spacious, less cluttered with the thoughts and opinions of hundreds (nay, thousands?) of other people. I think and hope that my new normal will be a lot like the last month has been — a much, much scaled-back version of how I’ve used social media for the last ten years, before we knew it as “social media.”

Another issue in all this are the recurring issues I have with my elbow, wrists, shoulder from computing and smart-phoning and living in a world in which my right arm has to DO STUFF. That is not resolved. Which leads me to the podcast update portion of this post: I don’t have any new episodes lined up right now. The editing of the podcast is very elbow-intensive because of all the mousing or track-padding that’s necessary. I either need to find help with editing or post unedited podcasts. Neither option thrills me; I like having total control over the thing, and it almost always needs editing. So, we’ll see. I’m glad to see via twitter that folks are still discovering and sharing the episodes that now exist. Aside from everything else I enjoy about it, it’s a nice way to stay connected to all of you and other writers during this long gap I have between books.

In complete contradiction to what I just said about my elbow, I’m also kicking around other podcast ideas since I do enjoy the medium so much, going back to the days in the ’70s when I’d talk like a radio announcer into a cassette recorder, pretending to be Dr. Don Rose of KFRC.

And speaking of long gaps between books, one thing that happened in my time off was the announcement in Publisher’s Weekly that my next two books will be coming from Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. This has been a big and exciting change, as my whole career until now has been with one publisher. My time at Little, Brown was wonderful, beyond what I ever imagined back when I would daydream about one day being a published author. I’m lucky to have worked with so many great people for the last decade, and lucky to have the chance to work with some more great people in a new setting. My first book with B+B will be out about a year from now, and I don’t think it will be too terribly long before there’s a cover, etc., to share. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

I hope your year is off to a good start. Maybe I’ll get to see you at YallWest or the Festival of Faith and Writing in a few months!