It's Been a Bit

Well friends, it’s been a bit.

Lots of life happened since the last time I wrote anything personal. I posted the last piece about myself over five years ago. I re-read it, then got sucked into a nostalgic side quest, and re-read the rest. I’ve never been great at opening up about my personal life, I suck at navigating social media, and I’m average at best in social situations.

But here we go.

First, let me clarify. I don’t fall within the socially “average” range because I produce consistently average social interactions. Sometimes, I can make it through a chance encounter at the dollar store without embarrassing myself, but just as often, I say or do something that goes astonishingly awry. When you put that to paper, I’m thinking the good and bad should cancel each other and put me somewhere in the middle.

Of course, I took Statistics twice at UGA in the mid- and late nineties and failed both times, so keep that in mind.

Also, I can overexplain and overshare, so let’s move on before this piece drops that "average" even further.

My last personal update came while working at my friend’s local pizza place. I had just left a twenty-year career to go back to school so I could become a teacher and focus on writing. That particular post deals with my second delivery on my very first night. I won’t bore you with the details. You can do that yourself here, but the overall thought is don’t judge a book

by its cover. 

Well, I've been teaching for several years now and finally finished school with a master’s degree. It turns out, standing in front of a classroom is a lot like delivering pizza: you've got to plan restroom breaks, you never know what the day may bring, and you meet some interesting people along the way. I love it.

The career change was worth every mile driven, every dollar-store social failure, and every Dub Purdee telling me I need to get my life together. For context, Dub was that second delivery on my first night delivering pizza I wrote about in my last update.

But while life shifted gears, the writing never stopped, even when the publishing process had to hit pause.

Chickamauga Battlefield: An Occurrence at Chickamauga Creek, from A Piper's Verse

Back when I released Darkness Watches in 2016, I had no idea what the road ahead looked like. Then came Parasite in 2017 and A Piper's Song in 2020. I was blown away by the support. Seeing thousands of readers step into those worlds kept the fire lit through the wildest five years of my life. Between writing academic papers, grading papers, study groups, and lesson planning, I kept building the stories in the background, word by word.

Which brings us to today. That circle is finally closing.

A Piper’s Verse is finished, and in just a few weeks, it's officially out in the world. If you’ve been here since Darkness Watches, thank you for sticking around through the silence. If you’re new here, welcome to the madness. My notebooks are full of tales waiting to make the leap to print, and I'm excited to write the next chapter of my life.

The website is officially updated with new clips, lyric videos, and book info. Feel free to poke around. If you'd like a little preview of a few of the stories in A Piper's Verse, you can check them out in music form on my YouTube channel here. If you like what you see (or hear), please consider subscribing. It really does help.

A Piper's Verse | Stories, Songs, & Other Southern Lies

And finally, I promise not to wait another five years before the next update. Unless, of course, I decide to go back and take Statistics a third time.