I’ve been complaining a lot about the fact that I have writer’s block. I haven’t written any new fiction in over a month. And it’s frustrating as hell. I have all of these stories that need to be written — more of Julianna and the Realtor, more of Alex and Lizzie and their ballbusting adventures, more choose-your-own-adventure erotica, and under my real name two novels that I really want to finish someday, both of which have very promising beginnings (one is ten chapters in, and one is at twenty-five or so).

But they’re just not coming out. I sit and stare at my screen, and the words don’t come.

I’ve written in the past, I think — maybe not on this blog, though — about how marketing can use up your creative juices, so you should do your writing before you do your marketing. Blogging is a form of marketing — it helps build your brand and gets people interested in what you have to say, keeping you in the front of their minds so that when you do write a story they have a positive association with your name and want to read it. At least, that’s the plan.

I make sure there’s a fresh post on this blog every weekday. It takes a lot of my creative juices to think of post ideas, especially when I don’t have any new fiction to preview. I never work in the office on Fridays, so that’s usually the day I spend writing the next week’s blog posts, but sometimes on my telecommute days I have an idea for a post and I’ll write it in the morning, before I start work.

And it eats my creativity for the entire day.

I know, I know; I should just sit down and write some fiction instead, and then do the blog post in the afternoon or evening, but that’s not how it works for me. Every writer is different.

Anyway, the point of all of this is to say: I needed some time to recharge, and Lani suggested that I take a month off, not writing anything at all — not even tweets or blog posts. I don’t think I could have done that, but two weeks? Two weeks I can do.

So for the past two weeks, all the blog posts you’ve read were written prior to December 18th. And, depending on how much I can do (this post is being written on the 13th), all of next week’s might be written in advance as well. The goal of all of this is for me to recharge, to build back up my writing mojo, to not think about fiction or blogging or tweeting or any of that stuff for two full weeks. Maybe the mojo will come back sooner; maybe I’ll write a few stories on Christmas Day or something. Who knows?

I just hope this works.