By inkblotsandintuition · October 16, 2026

(this originally was posted on my Tuhat, sharing here too!)

It has been a while.

Not because I ran out of things to say. Not because I stopped being a writer. Because my body needed something I had been denying it for a long time.

Rest.

I had surgery. Six weeks of recovery. Six weeks away from the desk, the drafts, the word counts, the publishing buttons, the posts. Six weeks of being a person instead of a producer.

On top of that, the physical surgery was just the start - once I healed from the physical side, I had a lot to go through, to get my creativity back and start feeling like me: that crazy, playful, warm presence on here who is a total sweetheart and a menace in the same body.

So buckle up, because here is what I (reluctantly) learned.

1. Rest is not a betrayal.

I used to think that not writing meant I was failing. That every day away from the page was a day I was losing. That the crates under my bed would judge me. That the cathedral would collapse if I stopped laying stones.

That somehow, if I took the time to heal, the people who read my stories and essays would forget about me.

(I blame capitalism for that LOL.)

It did not collapse.

The story waited. The characters waited. The voice waited. They did not leave. They did not punish me. They just... stayed.

Rest was not a betrayal of the work. It was part of the work. The part I had been skipping. The part where the body catches up to the mind. The part where the story settles into the bones before it ever reaches the page.

And more than that, the people I loved, were right there to pick up my work when I was ready.

If anything, the absence made them hungry, so when I came back, they said GIMME THE STORIES!

2. Recovery is integral, not optional.

We do not talk enough about the physicality of writing. The tension in the shoulders. The ache in the wrists. The way the body holds what the mind is trying to release.

Six weeks of recovery taught me that my body is not a vehicle for my writing. It is a partner in it. And a partner needs care. Needs rest. Needs time to heal without being asked to perform.

I did not write. I recovered. And recovery was its own kind of creative act. Its own kind of discipline. Its own kind of trust.

3. Not everything has to be performative.

This was the hardest lesson.

I am used to posting. To sharing. To documenting the process in real time. To turning every thought into a Tuhat entry, every feeling into a Substack essay.

But during those six weeks, I did not perform my recovery. I did not post about the surgery. I did not turn the pain into content. I just... healed.

Privately. Quietly. Without an audience.

And I learned something: not everything has to be shared to be real. Some things are just yours. Some healing is just yours. And that is not a failure of transparency. That is boundaries.

4. I can take my time.

This one is still sinking in.

I have spent years rushing. Pushing. Producing. The Virgo in me wants to control the timeline. The perfectionist in me wants to finish before I am ready. The writer in me wants to prove, again and again, that I am serious.

But I do not have to rush.

The novel will not expire. The poetry will not spoil. The crates under the bed will still be there. The archivist two hundred years from now will still find the pencil chicken scratch and wonder.

I can take my time.

And maybe — maybe — the work will be better for it.

5. Thank you.

To everyone who read my posts while I was gone. Everyone who subscribed. Everyone who left a note, a comment, a private letter, a kind word.

You did not have to wait for me.

But you did.

And I do not know how to say thank you for that. Except to keep writing. Except to keep showing up. Except to keep inviting you into the worlds I am building — the ones with ghosts and vampires and jesters and Mist Wolves and velvet masks and cinematic scale.

You are the reason I came back. And you are the reason I can rest again, someday, without fear.

6. The rest of it.

Which brings us here.

I am still working on pieces like The Velvet Mask. It is still refusing to be a short story. It is still a novel. I am still a novelist. I am still writing at my own scale — cinematic, cathedral-sized, full of light and shadow and the story behind the story.

I am still in writing rooms. Poetry for the beauty. Novels for the chaos. Self-help for the devastation. Essays for the meaning. Tuhat for the process.

I am still an empath who writes to keep from drowning.

I am still stubborn. Still a Virgo. Still poking fun at myself.

And I am still here.

What I learned in six weeks:

That rest is not the opposite of writing. It is the foundation of it.

That the page waits. That the readers wait. That the voice does not leave.

That I do not have to perform my healing to make it real.

That I can take my time.

That I am not alone — not in the writing, not in the recovery, not in the absurdity.

And that coming back is not starting over.

It is continuing.

So if you have been away from the page — whether for six weeks or six years — know this:

The work is still here. The voice is still here. You are still a writer, even when you are not writing.

Rest. Recover. Take your time.

And when you are ready, come back.

We will be here.