So after nuking all my queued messages, I'm going to try to follow along this time. What will keep the messages from piling up again? This time, if I refuse to let myself feel bad for passing over anything that comes up for me to read. I'm more likely to actually participate if I don't feel pressured into it, and watching those numbers slowly tick upward was more pressure than I could really manage.

The reason I haven't been contributing is... well, I've not been doing much creative work that I can post here. I do more than just music and writing – in fact, I do professional book design, and that takes time because I really focus on the details. I can't really post any of that as submissions here. So I'm going to seem quiet for a while. We'll see what happens.

Oh, and Thirteen Ribbons is still back-burnered, but it's not off the stove. There's something coming up that may put it in my foreground again. Right now, however, I'm having to get over the inertia of looking at what's already been written and thinking, "Can I live up to that? Can I do better? Can I really make this come together?" We shall see.