I had a blog once, under another name, in what now seems like another life. I started it so that my brain would not rot. I wrote to get the words out of my head and because writing seemed like the only machete I had in this forest that the road less travelled had taken me. “Less travelled” is not the correct metaphor, but that whole story is one for another time, if at all. In any case, that blog led me to begin my next book, and writing that book led to another blog under my professional name. The first blog fell by the wayside, finally shuttered. It served its purpose.

Now, the next book has become my last book. The work of a near decade is a thing in the world. That thing in the world has readers; indeed, readers who are not historians, readers who are not academics, readers who enjoy reading the book, readers who voluntarily write positive comments on Amazon, and readers who award prizes. Yes, my book won not one but two prizes! (Sadly, the award was not a leg lamp.)

Heck, as of the past week, I even have a troll. A troll who has a minion. A — as in one.  Really, you haven’t truly arrived as a lady writer until some abusive white guy in his thirties demands that you engage in “civil discourse” with him or suffer the consequences.

This success brings with it a little melancholy. The book had been so much a part of my life for so long and the subject for much longer. He, the subject, had become a veritable companion on vacations both as I worked on the book, researched, or visited the same places he did. Now, it is over. There are talks to be given, books to review, even more blog posts to write; but still, the work is done.

The passion driving the work? What to do with it? I loved the subject so deeply. The sickness — no, the intense wellness — insisting that I could know all, learn all, must find out more and tell the story emerged from my adoration of the subject. Now, much like the ending of a romance, I dread a future in which I shall never feel that again; and who am I if I am not madly questing for a story? What is life without that quest for a story?

Ok, I’m being a bit overly dramatic. I will be me and life will go on.

Melancholy has tinged this past summer for many reasons. The spring drained me for many reasons both good and not so. Physical ailments annoyed me. One has kept me from jogging, which I use to combat melancholy. I could not think a full thought, or even a half thought for much longer than a second, nor concentrate to read more than a sentence at a time. Solitude seems impossible for reasons beyond my control. Bitch, bitch, bitch, as my mother used to say. We should all have these problems.

The melancholy comes from mourning the ending of the last book. Now, I must work my way into the Next Book. So, I’m going back to the thing that worked before, but with that experience. A blog. I’ll keep it pseudonymous for a bit, until I work things out. Then, maybe move to the professional name.  But, I’ll do what I did before. I sort through ideas and see what happens. Writing for a blog, an imagined audience, gives it much more of an imperative than a journal. I have one of those anyway and it is for the real bitch, bitch, bitching. This is for the Next Book and, since I’ve set the precedent already and since I rather like the space to do this, other creative things unrelated to the Last Book and therefore inappropriate for that blog.

Onward to the Next Book, whatever it may look like!