Indefinite Hiatus

Hello All!

On February 22, someone incredibly important to me died. While the timing of the death was not at all a surprise, it has left me listless and depressed. In the days immediately following the death, I did what I could to maintain the blog, but the truth is, my head and heart are not in it right now.

I am metaconscious enough to recognize that this is a classic symptom of depression (giving up a long-held blog being a classic form of grieving, no . . . depression frequently manifests in the inability to take joy in things that once made one happy), but the results of fighting the symptoms have not been my best work. While I enjoy engaging my critical thinking centers, it is hard for me to enjoy things right now. For sure, I could continue writing reviews where the theme is "everything sucks" - to be fair, the first season review of Star Trek: Discovery I have just not gotten around to finishing is a legitimate analysis of something that was just terrible! - but spending my time that way is just not doing it for me right now. I looked forward to the second season of Jessica Jones for so long and I binged it, but can't bring myself to review the show that just didn't live up to the potential left at the end of the first and going back through the season for my usual episode by episode reviews was probably just the straw that broke this camel's back. I can't get excited about it and I can't keep psyching myself up to just maintain the shows I usually review.

W.L. Swarts Reviews The Universe might well continue - I have a backlog of Doctor Who reviews that are done and await posting and I still enjoy critiquing everything. But, I have a new novel that is itching to get written and it seems pointless to deny the excitement I have to spend time with my wife and furbabies and write that in exchange for churning out more reviews that are sliding toward mediocre.

I appreciate all the readers who have found the blog useful, informative or fun; should I return to it, it will be because I have more to say that meets those criteria. But, for now and the foreseeable future, that's not where my head and heart are at.

Thanks,
W.L. Swarts