Hey! Remember me? It’s been a while, but I’m going to do the usual thing I do with friends—pretend like it hasn’t and pick up right where we left off. 😉

So The Hubs and I spent some time traveling recently, three states (I’m counting the District of Columbia as a state here) in what felt like the blink of an eye but my calendar says definitely wasn’t. Most of our journey revolved around family, including a gorgeous wedding with all kinds of warm-and-fuzzies. Though a little too much of the warm bit. 🫠 If you’re considering a formal outdoor wedding in July, let me encourage to take a moment to reconsider.

July also happens to be my birthday month. I’m not sharing because I think Birthday Month is a thing (though I had a friend in college who knew the date of her Half Birthday). I’m sharing because it means I got to spend my actual Birth Day with my Mom for the first time in forever, which is pretty darn cool. So, good times.

But before The Hubs and I left Hawaii Island… Do you ever read Urban Fantasy?

(Slight tangent: I just finished the latest in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, which is a great place to start if you’re UF-curious. I feel like Mercy and my PI Sydney Brennan are kindred spirits. Both of them are usually physically outmatched and use their wits and wiliness to thwart the bad guys. But when that doesn’t work, Mercy has the advantage of shapeshifting into something with four legs that runs faster.)

I suffer from occasional bouts of what The Hubs and I call The Dresden Effect, a reference to the influence Jim Butcher’s title private investigator-wizard has on technology. Things will just fritz around me. Not all the time, but often enough and occasionally sparky enough to make it A Thing. (Unlike birthday months.)

At midnight the night before we left (yes, seriously), while ensuring I could access my current manuscript from the road on my iPad, I discovered that the universe had eaten the file. Well, not entirely eaten, but chewed it for a while and then spit out the bits. When I opened it on my desktop, it was missing about 15,000 words—not the most recent additions from the end, but in random chunks. When I opened it on my iPad it was missing closer to 25,000 words. About a hundred pages. 😱

Apologies to anyone who felt the ripple in the universe that was my meltdown.

I was pretty sure I could restore my manuscript from a back-up file, but not before leaving in a few hours. (I’d basically packed, but we’d still need to tuck our off-the-grid, in-the-jungle home into its bed, then load up our dog and our suitcases and drop off the dog at the kennel before hitting the airport. You get the idea.) So, after a night of bubbling temper that would make Pele proud, I resigned myself to not working on my story while we were gone.

That’s okay, there were other admin-like things I could be doing away from my desk. Except, the Dresden Effect didn’t entirely dissipate when we left the island.

After crossing an ocean, I discovered that neither my phone nor my iPad would load my emails. From any account. Again, it’s not that they wouldn’t load anything at all. I’d usually get the subject line, and I’d occasionally get the bulk of the email, but only ever for something I didn’t care about, like the Fourth of July sale for a crawfish distributor. (I’m a vegetarian, and even if I weren’t, no one ships crawfish to Hawaii. And even if they did, no one would live through eating them.)

So, that was that. I actually had to Not Work and step away from the Inbox Leash. And you know what? I experienced a few moments of frustration, but overall it was actually a good thing. The last couple of days in D.C. that I would have been trying to wring a few words from the manky dish towel that is my tired writer’s brain… instead I walked to museums I’d never visited before, stopping at bookstores and art supply stores and coffee shops and eating yummy new food along the way.

I also nearly got heatstroke, but only nearly. I’m blaming my inability to navigate Dupont and the rest of the damned D.C. circles on the Dresden Effect. Once I stopped looking at my phone and followed my gut, I did fine. Fine-ish. 😜

On my return home, I confirmed that my working files were complete garbage, but found that my backup file was fine. In other words (angels singing), my book was saved! I’m still reviewing the entire story from the beginning to get my head back into it, but now I also have the benefit of fresh eyes. Some of the things that were driving me nuts are actually not so bad. Or they have a relatively easy fix.

So, if you’ve emailed me since late June, I will get to you. I’m still digging my way out, including more tech troubleshooting. The file garbling wasn’t only the tip of the iceberg, but I continue checking the water for any dangerous chunks that could sink me.

That said, I’ve decided to step back a bit for the rest of the summer.

Do you remember summers as a kid, that feeling of relief, of the weight of school expectations lifted? School calendars have changed a bit since buses became motorized vehicles instead of carriages (kidding), but there are still traces of that magical feeling in the season, despite the killer heat. At least, I believe so, and I’m going to try to find the magic again.

I’ll still be around, but I’m pausing the monthly short stories here at the Blog and won’t be as responsive while I make space for other things in my life.

And, as your friend (which I’ve already established I am), I’m giving you a nudge to do the same. If you can, try to find a little space. Try to make a little magic. Let’s see what happens. 😊✨