When you first met me, I looked like this.
After many years, I regret to say that the end of this month will mark the end of The Waking Den.
When I started it, eight years ago, I was still in college. I was working on my first novel. I had a lot of ideas and very few notions of how to achieve them (I’m not sure too much has changed on that count!). This blog provided an outlet that was immeasurable for its help and, at times, the community that came and went around it.
But it’s no secret this past year has been probably one of the hardest of my life. With three books now to my name and a host of other scribbles, I’ve grown a lot creatively (though not met with any visible success), but life has borne down impossibly hard, and I simply do not have the time or energy to devote to this forum’s upkeep–not mention that after so many years and form changes, it’s become a touch bloated, to say the least!
For all that it has seen–short stories, articles, reviews, poems (god, so many Poems)–I will not be deleting it, but leaving it as a standing memorial. An archive of works that stand also to the progress of a young mind.
In time, I hope to return with a new project, with a website under my own name, but that will take time, and a great deal of change on the homefront to be able to achieve.
Today, I look like this. Time is a strange creature.
In the meantime, for those of you that have read, or said something, commented, participated, picked my brain, few though you may be, know that it has meant the world. To engage…that’s why we put ourselves out in the world, I think. We evolve through interaction, for it teaches us what we’ve done wrong, what we’re doing right, and new ways of doing things. New sights, new sounds, new people–the more we experience, the more we make ourselves accessible to art. Your connection has helped me grow as a person, and the bounty of that gift is incalculable.
Thank you.
And to all of you: keep writing.
Keep reading.
Don’t ever let your passion die.
The Waking Den 