Hi folks, I always do dread writing things like this. I guess out of some misplaced fear people will be upset with me?

In any case, I’ll cut straight to the point. For the next while, possibly the next long while, posts here on Magic Planet Anime will be a lot less regular. This means I’m probably not going to be hitting every column every week, and there may be fairly long gaps between posts. I sometimes might write fairly random things just for fun if I have the energy, but I’m not going to be capable of posting every column more or less on-time every day of the week like I have mostly (admittedly, not entirely) been doing for this past year.

If all you care about is the “what” and not the “why”, you can stop reading now, but I do feel like I should provide at least some explanation as to why this is happening for those who care or are curious. Hopefully without getting into TMI territory.

The short version is that I’ve been dealing with a fairly serious medical problem since back in April. I won’t go into the icky details, but it’s seriously impacted my ability to do things for myself physically as well as prevented me from walking around like I like to do, so my mental health has suffered pretty severely as well. I’ve been trying to see somebody for this for a long time, but progress has been intermittent and slow, for a whole host of reasons not worth getting into.

I think unfortunately I have been kind of using this blog’s regular schedule as a substitute for a routine, rather than simply building it on top of an existing, healthy routine I already had. This was fine last year and toward the start of this year when I didn’t have any big issues hanging over my head, but now that I do, things have gotten more complicated, and I can’t really be writing about cartoons instead of taking care of important stuff.

Plus; I do think the quality of my writing has suffered a little bit as a result of trying to prioritize consistency. I worry that in focusing on trying to convince myself that this is a “real job”—something that, frankly, is absurd. If anyone doesn’t think I deserve to be paid for what I do here, then doing it more consistently isn’t going to convince them otherwise—I’ve lost a little bit of the passion. Not much mind you, I still routinely put up columns I’m quite proud of. (See here from just yesterday, for example.) And plenty more that are quite fun to write (I really must stress that I’ve loved doing One Piece Every Day, even if it is going to be as impacted as anything else). My hope is that by dialing back the scale of my operations, I’ll make fewer, but better columns. And then, when I’ve got all my health issues sorted, I will be able to return in full force better than ever.

As for the immediate future, I have a couple One Piece Every Day columns that will go up over the next three or so days. After that, it’s all a big question mark, and I’m really not trying to push myself, so I don’t want to make any promises. There definitely won’t be much going on here next week, since I’ll be out of town. (I’m being taken on vacation by some close friends. Thankfully, they are paying.)

In any case, I highly recommend following me on Twitter if you want to be kept in the loop. Plus, I sometimes write (much more briefly) about anime there as well. Lastly, if this blog has ever brought you any joy or made you think about something in a new way, please do consider donating, every cent helps and I don’t have any other sources of income.

I think that’s about the shape of it, friends. I’ll be seeing you when I see you.

Oh, and yes, One Piece Every Day will be keeping its name. It would be excellent if I could keep up the “once per day” schedule, but I’ve already missed one just yesterday simply by forgetting to put it up, so uh…no promises. ^ ^;