So, I've been away for 4 years. But before anyone gets all up in arms about it, allow me to explain my whereabouts.
It all started when I found myself on, what was supposed to be, a 3 hour tour, on a small charter boat. While out, a storm came up and blew the ship off course and we shipwrecked on a deserted Island. And, everybody was killed. It was just me and my volleyball, Wilson Phillips, and a surprisingly varied and diverse bunch of people who had been trying to fly from Australia to Los Angeles. Oh, and there were these others that we'll just call the "Others." We called our group Team Jacob and their group Team Edward. And, we were split into districts by the Capitol and forced, like slaves, to provide all the different material goods the Capitol needed to maintain their lavish, superficial lifestyles. And Wilson Phillips, my volleyball, was drawn in a random lottery to fight to the death in this annual competition, hosted by the Capitol, President Voldemort, and his cabinet of Sith Lords where contestants from the 12 districts were forced to pair up with B-list celebrities and perform ballroom dance routines. And... it sounded dangerous, so I volunteered to dance in Wilson's place. And... if anyone made a mistake on the dance floor the Black Smoke would fly in with this unexplainable clicking sound and kill you, UNLESS, you could answer some basic trivia questions and prove you were smarter than a 5th grader. But my nerves got the better of me and when I was asked what the capitol of California was I accidentally said Los Angeles (which everybody knows is the capitol of Mexico). So I knew I was doomed. And... um... I was like... uuuhh...
Oh who am I kidding??!! I can't do this anymore!!! So many lies!!! And for what??!! To deny the real reason for my 4 year absence. It's true what Abraham Lincoln said. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, bing bang skibbity bop cleave."
The truth is I had a bad case of writers block. And once I was done teaching high school, I found it extremely difficult to keep up with the demands of writing. And not just the regularity, but also the exceptionally high level of quality that my readers had come to enjoy. But as you can tell from the stellar example of word-smithery above, that is no longer a problem. Boom! In your face, writers block!
