Taking a Break, I Suppose

The latter part of the winter has been pretty busy for me. I work part-time, I have a writing workshop, classes have started up again for the spring semester, and I always have a stack of writing deadlines waiting, not to mention keeping up with blogging. One of my main missions for the writing workshop has been to pare down my works in progress to something less menacing, mostly by setting aside my incomplete works and moving on. Writing is difficult work and if I don't focus, I'll never finish any of my projects.

I love feeling like a versatile writer. I write in different styles and genres. I've been getting into both interactive fiction and game-writing. I've gone back to writing in Hebrew as well as English. Trying new and different things is exciting, but it has to come at the expense of something. As I narrow down my criteria for what stays and what has to go, I've had to consider my own investment but also my potential audience in the calculation of what works and what doesn't.

Which is all just a roundabout way of saying I'm putting the Collar of the Damned universe on ice. This doesn't mean I'll never write in it again. More like, if I'm being realistic, I haven't been writing in it. Of all the projects I've been preoccupied with in the past few months, CotD has occupied a very low rung. Just high enough to weigh on my mind and affect my productivity, but not high enough to write and publish. My last story was published in August. Everything else is half-finished or barely-begun.

Not much will change. I am just formalizing what has been the objective reality for a while now. Much as I love it, CotD has no audience and my affection alone doesn't generate enough interest to sustain it in the long-term. My time is better spent on original short stories, games, and reviews. All of which I will continue to publish to my writing blog and my philome.la account respectively.