It has been a long time since I’ve written a blog post – the longest time ever, actually. For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s been so long, while the number of lacking posts ticks up and up and up.

Last week I woke up at 6:30 to get a nice, early start on writing something just like what this might become (plleeaassee). I set my coffee to start brewing at 6:25 so it would be ready for me right after I put my writing robe on (white, terrycloth, goes right over my pajamas) and sat down at my desk (brown, fake wood, squeaks a little when I write as if saying noooo or maybe yesss). I got the coffee. I sat down. I marveled at how wide awake I was, how ready to write. And then I sat there for 35 minutes. Plus side: I didn’t go on Instagram. Minus side: I sat there for 35 minutes. I might have been sleeping but also awake. Unclear.

So this where have I been? question is not going to end in me telling you that I’ve been globetrotting for a Travel + Leisure assignment or swamped writing the Tom Hank/Meg Ryan rom-com revival. I’ve been not writing, right here.

I moved to a new house, but that only gave me more space to write – perhaps about all my thoughts and feelings about moving to a new house? I had a really exciting TV development season with a 1/2 hour idea I was pitching, but that did not take all of my time – and writing other things during the process might have been really helpful. I had a cold – it lasted a day. I got some tough news about a family illness – it would have been therapeutic to get my feelings down on screen. Oh, one day I did realize my blog format was all messed up, but I fixed the big problems and the rest can wait.

Long story short: I have no real excuses; I just haven’t wanted to write. And that is a first. On December 8th this blog will turn 10 years old. I have never needed/wanted a hiatus in all that time. Why now?

Here are my current ideas. Some of them are dark but you can handle it:

• I remain deeply depressed about the election of Trump and that upset had landed in the blogging part of my brain?
• My brain decided/realized that all anyone cares about is celebrities and style bloggers so why keep writing?
•  I spend so much time on TV writing/development that there’s no space for other writing?
• I have writer’s block but only of the blogging variety
• The things I now want to write about are getting too personal so I’m afraid?
• I’m angry about a lot of things (see item #1) and I don’t like to write angry so I’m not writing?
• I have dropped into a lazy zone.
• It is naturally time for me to transition out of blogging and my brain figured it out first.

Or, all of the above?

Any answer is fine/right, but I’d like to figure it out before we go too much further. I can live with 10 years of blogging. What I can’t live with is 9 years and 9 months.

So for the next few weeks, I’m going to try to find out why I haven’t wanted to write this blog anymore, in writing. I don’t really know what that’s going to look like, but I think it might involve weird posts and me re-reading The Artist’s Way. I don’t really care. My goal is to make it to December 8th, and to decide on that date if I’m going to go further.

Step one: write the first post I’ve written in months.

Check.