It takes a long time for this old bear to learn her lessons. For the past few months I’ve tried to feed this blog and translate and run and work on my novel and keep everything going smoothly in our household and keep up with interesting things on the internet. And everything is going fine except for the novel. Somehow, all those other things are just so much more immediate. So much easier to tick off the list over the course of a day. But when the day ends and I’ve not put in the time on my writing project, I’m somehow unsatisfied.

So I did some soul-searching. I’m not going to stop running, because it makes me feel alive and sparks my creativity. I get good ideas on the run. I’m also not going to let my house fall into ruin, because then I really would have a hard time concentrating. (I will work on getting the teenage cubs to carry their load, however.) I’ve cut way back on my translating already, and I don’t want to give it up entirely. It keeps my French in good shape and enriches my English vocabulary.

So that leaves surfing the internet and Gydle. The first is easy. That’s just willpower. Don’t check your mail, you just did that two minutes ago … The second is a little harder. I love this blog, and I love my readers. But regular, well-written posts take time and energy, and there is unfortunately not a bottomless supply of either in my current incarnation. And, truth be told, it’s a little bit of a vicious circle between these two. The more I feel I need to put up a blog post, the more I use the excuse that I have to search my favorite places on the internet for interesting stuff to write about.

So, like a she-bear, I’m going to give Gydle a rest, hunker down in my cave and let my novel feed off the fat of my imagination for a while instead. I’m sure the big wide world will function just fine without her. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit some of the blogs on my blogroll for some fresh insightst in running, science, and writing.

I’m open to the idea of putting up a couple of guest posts, so if you have any great ideas (yes, Dave, I’m talking to you here), drop me a line, at the e-mail address in the box on the right. I’ll check it once every couple of days. And if something totally amazing comes up, I’ll post. But until then – zzzzzzzzz.