You may have noticed that a few things about this blog have changed, the layout mostly. I’ve struggled and pondered over what to do here. I’ve questioned deleting the whole thing, or at least numerous posts. I even polled strangers, hoping you’d help me decide. The biggest response to that poll was to keep the blog as is, which speaks to what I wanted. I don’t want to delete old posts. I don’t want to pretend I’m happy all the time and just sit here plugging my novel, even though I know I’m supposed to plug my novel, so here—the book is out in like two weeks and check out the newly expanded website.

Get this: I’m an angsty person. I have a few troubles. I complain about them. Truth is, being a (soon-to-be OMG) published writer isn’t all cake and book deals. But even when it is, once good things happen, this is no excuse to brag about my awesome agent or the fact that my editor made the spine of my book purple foil and I love her for it, which she did, and which I do. These things are not my entire life. In the past, the not-too-distant past, I may have been a miserable person thisclose to giving up the whole shebang. And you know what? I am not going to let myself forget it.

That’s one reason why I will not be deleting my archives.

I might be censoring what I say here, since sometimes I have the tendency to vent in the moment and then regret it later. There should be a 24-hour delay on my posts; I’ll talk to WordPress about it.

Anyway, what’s going on is this: I used to feel more anonymous. Even though my first and middle names are in the url, I guess I was being silly and thought no one I knew would be reading. But, as the years passed, that’s not the case. I made friends through this blog, some really wonderful friends, and they know who I am and I know who they are and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Also, people I know in real life found this blog at one time or another—and that’s great. And I’ve shared it with friends I trust. And I’ve linked to it from my website. And, what the hell, here I am. There’s my photo in the sidebar. There’s my entire name.

My bio page is new, with real stuff about really me.

The book I wrote is on here.

My life is on display.

And I’ll just keep it that way—gagging myself every now and then for good measure. If the gagging gets to be too much, I’ll just start an anonymous blog elsewhere and this time I’ll be smart about it and not use my name in the url!

I know I haven’t been good at commenting on other blogs, but I’ve been around, distracting myself silly by reading your posts through my Google Reader. And I will be a better blogger soon. I would promise, but let’s just say I will try. Because I want to. Changes are afoot in my life and let this be just one tiny one. Blogging helped me through the worst points of my life—the deepest holes I sunk myself into—and I’m not about to give it up. I need it a little.

So now you know what I look like and you can see my whole name, but other than that? This blog is pretty much staying the same. I’m writing this new novel now, so I’ll probably tell you aaaaaaallllll about the process and bore you silly. So, um… thanks for reading?