Hello Cip Stack Readers and Listeners,

For those of you who have followed this publication as I’ve attempted to turn it into a daily writing newsletter over the past several months, no doubt you have noticed some inconsistency in my publication cadence lately.  I partially addressed it with my hiatus notice two weeks ago, and after struggling to find my footing I feel the need to address it again.

Transparently, I am facing some steep uphill challenges in my personal life that have begun to bleed into my writing.  Those challenges are painful and emotionally draining, and I’ve noticed that my passion for writing about the technical and inspirational aspects of writing has flagged.  The kind of energy, humor and thrill that I normally feel about writing has lost some of its spark in the face of those challenges.

When I began writing the Cip Stack, it was in an effort to bring value to the writing community online and inspire and teach others.  I have been writing intentionally since penning my fantasy saga, Krög the Battle Prince, and continuing for the last ten years.  In that time, I have learned a lot about publication- especially self-publishing- the art and craft of writing, and the community and culture of writing.  Those are things I wanted to share with the broader community, especially newer or first time authors.  Especially given that I am an ardent believer that the world absolutely, without question needs more storytellers in it.

So I embarked on a little sidequest to get up early every morning, pen a brief newsletter about a few writing related topics, record it as a podcast and vlog, and put it out to the world.  And I’ve enjoyed the heck out of it!  For a while, the enjoyment of the act itself was enough, and it helped me fall back in love with the process and habit of writing- something I had fallen out of practice with.

Lately though, the daily effort of writing a valuable, instructional article, recording it as a podcast and a video cast, uploading all of those things and promoting them to social media along with my other pursuits has become a strain.  In the midst of this, I am still working a full time job (the great excuse of content creators everywhere), pursuing my creative writing, and I’ve had a very active travel schedule thanks in part to my relationship.  Along with roadbumps in that relationship and stress from increased pressure at work, I’m having a hard time feeling inspirational.  Not to mention trying to maintain an active social media presence that I have become increasingly unsocial in.  Putting too much thought into every post instead of just cutting it up and yacking about stuff I enjoy… you know, being social

In times like these, there is a place I turn to for comfort and solace: writing.  My mind has been on fire with new project ideas, and the need to write creatively is overwhelming.  I feel words flying out of my fingertips, and increasingly that is where I want my attention and energy going.  My writing.  The thing I want to share with the world more than anything.  Stories.  I have more to tell.  Wild-eyed fairytales.  Creepy but satirical folklore horror.  Poignant science fiction.  And rollicking fantasies.  I have so much I want to write in this moment, and I need to put my full weight behind the words.

At my best, I keep writing pars around 2000 words a day, and writing a daily newsletter has eaten into that.  Again, not that it hasn’t been enjoyable!  But I need to prioritize my creative writing for a while, not only to have more to share, but also as my coping mechanism.  As I encourage everyone else to do… I need to write.

What does that mean for the Cip Stack?  Well in the immediate, it means I need a short break.  At least a week or two to get my mind right and put some effort behind other projects.  Outside of my writing, I do host another podcast, the B-Siders, and we are finishing up our first season but I still have a lot of work to do editing the remaining episodes and getting them out on time.  You may not know it, but I also pretty regularly run Spartan races, and my training has collapsed- as evidenced by a particularly difficult race this past weekend that I am still pretty bruised from.  I need to get physically back in shape.  And I do have other hobbies!  Reading and chess, and I’d like some free time and mind space to devote to those as well!

So I’m taking a few weeks off of this newsletter while I recenter myself and reassess my own writing journey.  That’s not to say I am abandoning it completely.

November is the infamous NaNoWriMo event, and I have committed to joining a few other writers to attempt this feat.  I will not be writing a novella I have been aching to write for a while, and I am truly very excited for the prospect of the challenge.  During that time, I am going to update The Cip Stack with progress reports and learnings from the process.  My hope is that by taking you through the journey of cranking out a novel in one month, I can teach you all and inspire you further in your own writing efforts.

It does also mean, however, that updates will likely come a little more slowly and on a less regular cadence.  The rigidity of daily content creation has started to feel constraining, rather than inspiring.  And frankly, I never wanted to be a content creator- I want to be a writer.  And writing, good writing, takes time.  It can’t be rushed.  It shouldn’t be rushed.

On the other side of this, I do hope to bring you all some new storytelling projects.  I’m very close to relaunching The Lemonade Stand Massacre, an online pulp fiction zine that heavily features sarcastic speculative fiction.  While I used to write it with a team of writers, I am taking it over as a solo project- just somewhere to put up stories for people to enjoy.  Ultimately that feels more in line with what I want to be doing as a writer anyway.  Plus I will soon begin working on a podcast version of the first book in my fantasy saga: “The Mythical Mystical Magnificent Adventures of Krög: the Battle Prince, Volume 1- Beyond the Great Hall.”  That’s something else I am truly excited about.

At the end of the day, I am not a writing instructor by trade.  I just happen to have a lot of knowledge in that arena to share.  I’m going to start sharing it differently.  That’s the crux of this letter.  And hopefully, in a little time, I’ll also have more stories to share with you as well.

But for now, a pause.  What feels like a much needed pause.  After the New Year, I may return to instructional writing on a daily basis, but right now there just feels like too much going on to really put my f*****g soul into this- and that’s what I want to be able to do.  Write things from my soul.

So I’m gonna get back to that.  And YOU should get back to your writing.  We’ve got stories to tell.  Let’s get down to it.

Thanks everyone.  Be excellent to each other.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ryancipriani.substack.com