Why I’m Taking a Month Off From Writing

Yeah, that’s the worst headline I’ve ever written

You can buy this calendar

I’m going to take September off from writing. I know. Most of you are like, who? What? Who cares?

So…

To you folks who read me for the writing angle, I’ll just say that when you’re writing and your mission is to make the words mean something, you need to constantly refresh and reinvent. Sometimes you can find that time in the spaces between posts, but every once in a while you need to just drop off the editorial calendar and go live your life for a bit to reload.

If you read me for the business angle, here’s a dirty secret:

There is no flywheel.

Markets, like audiences, are fickle. There is no such thing as a perpetual business motion machine. Flywheels happen, they last for a while, then they slow and eventually stop. Like I said above, sometimes you can figure out how to get them spinning again in the rare down moments when you can catch your breath. When you can’t, you pivot.

Now. If you don’t read me regularly at all, please move on to the next thing you wanted to do today. You’re not going to care about the rest of this.

This is a planned unplanned break

Are they gone? OK, here’s the deal. I need a month off to make some changes in response to a lot of changes that have happened and will continue to happen in my world.

I started thinking about taking a break Friday morning. I’m posting this Sunday. I spent the weekend thinking about it — not all weekend, just here and there. I really thought it was just an itch on Friday, but by today I’m convinced it’s not only necessary, it’s also a great idea, and it needs to start today, not September 1st.

Again, I totally don’t expect you to care about this or for it to change your day in any way. I just want you to know why you won’t see any posts from me for a month.

It’s not what you might think. I’m not bored. I’m not out of ideas. I’m not suffering from writer’s block. I didn’t get too busy. Actually, there’s a little bit of all of that going on, but none of it is anything different than what any writer goes through in a normal…