cool and unusual punishment

So Hiatuses

The next month is exam month at my school and junior year, which has easily been one of the hardest academic ventures of my life, is finally culminating in the academic equivalent of a month-long dead sprint. I'll be at regattas out of town for half of this, so when I'm not studying I'll be rowing, when I'm not doing either of those things I'll probably be eating, sleeping, or doing projects, possibly talking to my friends, oooooooor attempting to prepare for colleges. It's no exaggeration to say I have literally no free time and writing has been causing me to procrastinate rampantly just because it messes with my ability to estimate how long things will take once I start trying to account for it. It's been really stressful for me and while continuing to update through it would not be *impossible*, it would be highly *implausible*, and would probably just burn me out further. The schedule I've been kind-of-keeping-up the last few months has been a good learning experience for me but to be entirely frank, being successful on Wattpad requires a lot more networking than I have time for and it's really been a source of frustration I do not need in my life right now. Wattpad tends to distract me from writing, magically, writing tends to distract me from mounting piles of homework, and I need to attempt to get into college next year. 

Our school is incredibly competitive-- most people in my classes, including me, have regular nervous breakdowns, and most of us get five or less hours of sleep and essentially do homework and extracurriculars whenever we're awake. It's very demanding and taking care of myself in any meaningful capacity (read: getting sleep and occasionally seeing my friends) has become a priority not just because I would like not to be depressed but as a means of survival because I can't afford to break down, which would only slow me down further-- it's like treating a broken leg not because it hurts, but so you can keep walking. I know this seems very melodramatic (understandable, given that I am a high schooler) but I want to emphasize the stress and pressure placed on people at our school is very real and there is essentially nothing we can do about it if we want to be academically competitive for colleges. It's a vicious system that reform has only ever paid lip service to, rather than doing anything legitimate to address, but I completely digress.

I do have all of The Cities Have Fallen queued and I'll be updating it twice weekly, so if you'd like to check that out, that would be incredible. I am really proud of what I've managed to do from a literary standpoint, and I had a lot of fun with a more experimental prose style. For anyone trying to jump into it, it is a sequel to The Space Between Stars, so you'll want to check that out first. While feedback to my stories has been low (understandable given that I'm generally afraid to put myself out there) I would implore long-time followers who might have gone dormant over time to check any of my recent stories out if they have a spare moment. I extend the same sentiment to anyone who followed recently out of mild curiosity. Receiving feedback or even just encouragement from Wattpad has been great when I do receive it and I've made many lovely friends through this website. If anyone would ever like to talk author to author, person to person, or reader to reader, I will be around over said "hiatus", though I might not give the most punctual responses. 

Hopefully this clears everything up!