The Detour That Stole My Writing Time

 From customer emails to creative revival

If you’ve been wondering where the hell I’ve been for the last half a year… you’re not alone. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

Despite being officially retired since late 2018, I made the decision—for a few practical reasons and a little bit of curiosity—to take on a six-month, full-time temporary role. It was with a company I already work for part time, answering customer service emails, helping people sort out issues, and keeping things moving from behind the scenes.

And yes, it was work from home.

Which, I’ll admit, sounded a whole lot more attractive than dealing with unruly Christmas shoppers in person.

No commute. No crowded stores. No last-minute panic buyers treating retail workers like obstacles instead of people. Just me, a laptop, and an inbox.

On paper, it felt like the perfect middle ground.

...on paper....

In reality?

Man, did it eat up my writing time.

I went into it thinking I could balance things the way I used to—work during the day, write in the evenings, keep the creative wheels turning. But going back to full-time hours after seven years away from them hit harder than I expected. There’s a rhythm to that kind of schedule, and once you’re out of it, stepping back in is… an adjustment.

Add to that the fact that I’m now within spitting distance of official senior citizen status, and let’s just say the energy reserves aren’t quite what they were the last time I worked a full-time role.

By the end of most days, I wasn’t just tired—I was mentally spent. Creative work needs a different kind of fuel. Curiosity. Focus. Emotional bandwidth. And when your brain has spent eight hours problem-solving and context-switching, it doesn’t always want to pivot into building worlds and unsettling readers.

I still wrote, here and there. Notes. Fragments. Ideas scribbled down before they disappeared. But the deep-dive writing sessions—the ones where you lose hours and come out the other side with something real—were few and far between.

Writing while learning and performing a full-time job is tough. Much tougher than I remembered. It’s not just about time; it’s about headspace.

That said, I don’t regret taking the role. It gave me structure. It challenged me in a different way. It reminded me what a full workload actually feels like—and, maybe more importantly, why I stepped away from it in the first place.

But I’m also damn glad it’s done.

Because now, I’m back. And I’ve got a lot to fill you in on.

Even while the writing slowed, the creative engine never shut off. I’ve been collecting ideas like kindling—new stories, planned stories, half-formed concepts that refuse to leave me alone. I’ve discovered new authors whose work has been pushing me in interesting directions. I’ve got notes for projects that feel sharper, stranger, and more personal than anything I’ve tackled in a while.

And I’ve been getting back out into the world again, too. Bookstore signings. Conversations with readers. dReadCon. Moments that reminded me why I do this in the first place.

Horror is a strange little corner of the creative world, but it’s full of people who get it. The curiosity. The darkness. The need to explore what makes us uncomfortable and human at the same time. Reconnecting with that—after months of staring down a customer service queue—felt like plugging back into an electrical current.

So if things seemed quiet from me, it wasn’t because I disappeared. I just took a temporary detour into full-time work, and it demanded more of me than I expected.

Now the balance shifts back.

More writing. More updates. More stories. More strange ideas I can’t wait to share. I’ve missed the rhythm of it—the late nights, the breakthroughs, the slow, satisfying build of something unsettling coming together on the page.

Thanks for sticking around while I was off the radar.

I’m back at the desk.

And there’s a lot coming.