Good morning, friends, and I hope it finds you well. That’s me in a picture taken by my daughter in front of my doctor’s office a week ago today. And why am I at my doctor’s office, you may ask? Because I’m old. Too many miles on the clock I believe is what the English say. I’m wearing out, and that is the true horror of life; you wear out.

What’s true of your body is also true of your mind. Oh, I don’t have dementia or other cognitive problems. I’m still sharp and free of delusions. But, here’s the thing. Up until about ten years ago, I was a writer. I was never famous, never hit the big time, but for sixty years I strung words on the page well enough to have a following, many of whom are the other authors on this site. I’ve tried to get it back over and over again, and although I recently completed a short story, I have no love left for the Craft.

Over my lifetime I’ve had many hobbies. The first one I remember, dating back to the age of six, was building plastic models. Grandma bought me my first one. It was a B-52. Had about six parts, looked like something you’d find in a cereal box. For the ensuing thirty years I built planes, ships, tanks, and cars. Got pretty good at it. Then, somewhere in the mid 1980s, I woke up one morning and couldn’t stand to look at it. Walked away, and never looked back.

I received a board wargame for my 13th birthday in 1961. It was the battle of Gettysburg. For the thirty years following, I led the armies of the world across battlefields, real and alternative. Ancient, modern, and all points between, I can discuss military history with a fairly unique viewpoint because I’ve been there and made the decisions that decided the fates of nations. And then I tired of it and sold off my collection, never to return. I still have a couple of leftovers in my closet, and once in a while, I’ll get out Breakout Normandy by Avalon-Hill, flip through the 60+ page rulebook that looks like the curriculum notes for a hard college course, and wonder how I ever thought that was fun.

That’s where I am with writing. For six decades I was able to produce a stream of stories. I’ve tried to keep it going, I have. I own the StoryMatic decks you can get from Amazon. I have four of the Story Engine decks, beyond any doubt, prompts that can be combined to produce trillions of stories. I’ve put together some amazing plots using those decks, but here’s the thing: When I sit down to write, it’s agonizing. It’s like having your teeth pulled; you’d rather be doing anything else.

So, much like those other hobbies that I thought were going to last for life, I’m going to stop fighting what my mind is telling me. I have no plans to write further, nor to post here as a regular anymore. I still love to read and being friends with the wonderful writers I’ve met along the way, and will continue to administer this site and may occasionally offer something on our Open Monday feature. But my heart is solidly in the realm of video games. Modern games are fantastic forms of literature in which the creators have had to allow for any action a player might take, and provide multiple outcomes depending on those actions. I very much want to see how Skryim, Fallout, The Witcher and Baldur’s Gate end, something that isn’t going to happen if I tie up hours of my free time every day doing something I can no longer stand.

This isn’t goodbye. I’m just stepping back a little. Some of my stories are available to read in the Authors’ Showcase tab above. I’ll still be around to talk to, and every few days I’ll get over to writing-dot-com to write a review. See? Reading’s fine. I just don’t want to write anymore, and is that really so horrible?