On Balance

An apology and a promise to do better

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I've struggled to write this post for a long while.

I'm not giving up on this Substack, and I've certainly not stopped writing, but I do have to let this take a backseat to everything else for a while now. I had guessed that the pace at which I was working was unsustainable, and so I was partly wondering how long my post schedule could last. As the end date of my originally announced rest period came and went, I struggled to figure out how to continue (and continue sustainably). I also feel guilty for taking people's money for extra content that I haven't been providing, which is why I turned off payments a while ago. I'll also be cancelling offering paid subscriptions and refunding people's money.

I didn't get sick this time (well, not much), but I did get overwhelmed with all the other things in my life. Some of you know I'm getting married this summer, so I've been trying to plan a wedding. My job had also had me travel more than I've ever traveled before for work. Not to mention, the general feeling of living in an increasingly fascist and authoritarian state.

I couldn't find a way to balance. I wish I could have, but I didn’t and still can’t manage to do all of the things I committed to earlier and still manage to have some semblance of a life. Some people can. I can’t.

What I can do though is strive for balance; between work, relaxation, health, and hobbies. So, to that end, it's time to change the proposition of Inkdrift a bit:

• All paid memberships are getting turned off and I'll be refunding any money. All posts that were previously "paid" will be made available to anyone who wants to read them. That's backlog will hopefully make up for the fact I’ve been away for a while.

• Rainbow Station will continue, returning in two weeks, July 18th¹. I'm not going to commit to a post schedule at this moment because I don't want anyone to be disappointed, but I'm going to try (emphasis on try) to post at least once every other week.

• The audio posts for Rainbow Station will also continue and expand a little bit to cover all posts coming out of this blog. Although, admittedly, of a slightly lower quality. I'm going to focus more on just reading the words, rather than focusing on doing the voices, adding in music, combing through previous posts to find clips that would remind people of where the characters are, and so on. Those things increase the quality quite a bit, but they also add a lot of time for me, that I simply don't have.

• Inkdrift will have occasional posts focused on what I've been reading, or my thoughts on writing or books or movies. It'll probably be a mix of Writer's Diaries and Story Syntax. Speaking of which...

• Story Syntax with ZK Hardy will be on hiatus for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your kindness and understanding. I'll be posting soon.

1. This will actually be the day before I get married. Don’t worry, the post is already done and scheduled.