…but after a lot of soul-searching, and looking at my own past trends, and thinking about what works and what doesn’t, I’ve decided that next summer, I’m just going to take an official break from Tales of MU. Whether we have another record heatwave or not, whether I have another year of terrible allergies and summer colds or not… well, there’s a reason hardly anyone spends the whole year writing the same story without a break, year after year. It wears you down.

I keep recognizing this. I keep saying I need to build actual breaks into my schedule. I keep not actually holding to it.

History tells me that summer’s going to be messy. Next year I’m just avoiding the mess. The length and details of the break are something I’ll have to figure out then, but it’s going to happen.