Dear 2011,

So, hey kid. What’s going on? We were sup­posed to be motor­ing along here, putting out a sec­ond book, re-editing the first and mak­ing up some nice shorts along the way. I think some­where, we took a wrong turn, mate. To be hon­est, and as cliche as this sounds, it’s not all you, it’s me too. I haven’t been the best at this writ­ing deal, I haven’t tried my hard­est every day and every week, to be quite hon­est, I just found more enjoy­ment in other things. I still appre­ci­ate your com­pany — spend­ing time with you and giv­ing you the thumbs up as each month goes by, expect­ing us to come together and work around this quag­mire. But really, well it never hap­pens does it? You can’t slow down, I can’t speed up… we’re kind of ships pass­ing in the night, only you’re a speed­boat bounc­ing off the white waves, and I’m Cap­tain Jack’s bro­ken boat tak­ing on water and sink­ing like a stone.

I don’t mean to sound dis­tant, but let’s face it, 2011, we’re just not work­ing well together. We’ve both given it seven months now, and it’s been seven months of bro­ken promises and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties. We man­aged to get May 5 & The Assas­sin out, and though I was encour­aged at the time and expected more, I’m just not so sure anymore.

Look, things have got­ten crazy… I know. More unex­pected things seem to hap­pen with every one of your months that go by, and there has been a lot of stress dur­ing June and July — men­tally and phys­i­cally. I’ve been drained and unable to com­mit to what we meant to start out together. I’m telling you now, because hon­estly, I’m not sure if it’s going to get any bet­ter. We put some time aside in March and in-between to start the sec­ond book, we pot­ted about here and there, try­ing to piece together a short story, but it just isn’t com­ing together and every time I remem­ber how lit­tle I’ve accom­plished, it makes me feel a lit­tle shitty inside.

It’s one thing to put aside this dream of ours — this plan to con­quer my inad­e­qua­cies as a writer, know­ing full well that we can come back to it and tackle it again one day. But it’s another to hold onto those ‘what ifs’ and keep try­ing to poke away at them, get­ting annoyed every time I can’t pro­duce any­thing, or feel­ing like I’m tak­ing time away from life, my fam­ily, real-world con­cerns, just to accom­plish noth­ing, but keep pre­tend­ing I can.

2011, I’m not a happy camper. You’ve given me all the time I needed, but the crush of unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances and uncon­trol­lable events have turned my life upside down to a degree, or at the very least, left it hang­ing in a con­stant state of flux. It’s hard to attain any heights or slam-dunk any goals, when you’re not sure what the world has in-store for you next (and between you and me, if the past few months are any indi­ca­tion, I’m not going to be win­ning the Luck contest).

I know I sound like a bum­mer, 2011, but I can’t help it today. Some­times things just get away from us, from me, and no amount of try­ing, com­plain­ing, or promis­ing will make it all bet­ter. This isn’t me giv­ing up, but be patient. I’m not expect­ing great things for the next five months, but as said, I have no clue what’s around the cor­ner. As much as it might be another groan-fest, it might just sur­prise me — Mr. Pessimism.

Yours (at least until 2012 shows up, I’ve heard she’s a looker),

RG.