And changeful. And changing.
Anyone who has been reading my work for the last few years will likely know that I’ve been close to burn out for quite some time. I was working as an academic and the enormous weight of workload and expectations was getting to be too much. I found it hard not to be one of those helpful professors, and as much as I loved helping students, and doing research, and teaching, there’s a point where it isn’t manageable any longer. I stopped writing entirely in 2020. Not because I wanted to stop. Far from it, I often felt a deep primal urgency to do any writing at all. But the workload was too overwhelming.
The attentive among you will have already noted that I am writing in the past tense. After long discussions with my partner, we decided that enough was enough. I’ve left my job, and we’ve moved the family to New Zealand where I have close family. Luckily for us, we are in a position where I can take some time away from paid employment. What this means, I hope, is that you will start to see (a lot) more work from me on the writing front.
Now, I should warn you: I am still recovering from a generalised state of exhaustion, and we do have two small children who require a lot of attention. My time is not entirely given over to writing. But, I do feel positive about getting back into creative work. For obvious reasons, I feel much more positive now than I have in quite some years.
It shall be an interesting journey. We shall see where it takes us. And we shall embrace what comes our way. After all, life is change.
And please do feel free to drop me a line if you want to say hello. I think sometimes that people worry that they might contribute to the exhaustion with an email or other message, but that really isn’t the case. You can email me at hobgoodfellowe@gmail.com.