It’s been a year since I resurrected this blog, only to bury it again within weeks. In January 2009, with my memoir on the verge of being released, and the editing of Gifts 2 occupying the rest of my time and thought, I had nothing left for blogging.

Shelving the blog was a wise move, especially considering what happened next. By the end of January I was steadily sinking into a treacly mire of depression. By the end of February, when YEAR hit the market, I was completely submerged. At the very time I needed to be at the top of my game, I could barely function. The irony would’ve killed me if I’d had any solid capacity to think or feel. As it was, I struggled to put two words together. Writing a short email took me all day, and I couldn’t comprehend how I’d ever managed to write a coherent paragraph, let alone a full manuscript.

Sounds melodramatic, I know. But it was bad. Worse, even, than the depression that I wrote about in YEAR.

I’ll be writing plenty more in the days to come about wrestling the black dog (or, more accurately, lying very still under its crushing canine weight). For now, suffice it to say that modern pharmaceuticals saved my life–again. By Eastertime I was back among the living, yet soundly shaken by the ordeal. Shaken enough that I left blogging on the far back burner. While many factors contributed to my crash-and-burn, work overload was definitely one of them.

For the rest of the year I experimented with sane balance in several areas of my life, and was relieved to find some tentative success. In the fall, after finishing a rigorous round of editing on the sequel to The Mother In Me, I stuck a toe back into blogging waters at BCC and remembered how much I enjoyed yakking online. Due to the heavy editing demands of 2008 and 2009, it had been a good long while since I’d done any writing, and resuming the craft felt fantastic.

And so, as the new year rolled around, it seemed fitting to resurrect Queen Serene yet again. I’m not certain how long she’ll stick around this time, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Glad you’re along for the ride.