Wow. Something occurred to me around lunchtime today (Monday, December 14, 2009): I was dreading the prospect of facing my drawing table tonight. Whoa! That’s never happened before. And I have this week’s comics planned (though not yet drawn) so it’s not so much writer’s block as just complete and utter creative fatigue.

Sure, I’ve got a lot on my plate, but that’s nothing new. Yeah, I didn’t get any pencilling done on Sunday but that, too, isn’t exactly earth shattering. And despite things going fairly steady in the way of pageviews and so forth, I feel like I’m facing this humongous brick wall and cannot find my sledgehammer or ladder.

So I’m taking a week off from both comics, totally without warning or planning, and while I hate to do it (because I’ve never been that type of artist before and don’t plan to make it a habit as some do) I think I need to do this or risk worse next week or next month. I know I took an announced, scheduled break earlier this year and I’m thinking that I might actually consider some planned breaks for the next calendar year. Like a week off every 6 months. Chances are good I’d still be working on comics-related items (and, at least this week, I want to do some brainstorming on some upcoming things) during these breaks but I think it’s going to happen and I think the overall work I put out will be stronger for it.

I hope you’ll understand and not hate me for this. I love knowing what I post makes people smile or outright laugh and I have so many stories left to share that I don’t have any intentions of ending these comics any time soon. It’s just, I’m human, and I need a week.

We’ll be back to business as usual on the 22nd.

While that does sum it up, let me explain:

I have this project I’ve been chipping away at, maybe you’ve heard of it? What to Feed Your Raiding Party–ring a bell?

I’ve been throwing bits and pieces of time at it for 5 months and it’s nowhere near finished. And those bits and pieces of time are the reason why: it is at once my greatest hope for the future and my red headed stepchild of a project. And that’s not fair to it, me, or the people I’m writing it for.

So for the next two months both Cocktail Hour and Where the Geeks Are will be on hiatus so that I can focus my time and energy. At the end of July I’ll decide if August will be taken off, too.

But that doesn’t mean cobwebs will be gathering here! Think of it like a summer break for your favorite shows. I’m not planning to go the re-run route, but we’ll be subbing in various updates from the cookbook project: maybe a sketch here, an excerpt there, a tip another time–basically whenever I’ve got stuff worth sharing which I’m hoping will be quite often.

And because I’d really love it for my analytics numbers not to bottom out, the bits I post here? Won’t be the same as the ones over at the cookbook site or the other comic. So please keep your subscription to the RSS feed (or start one if you haven’t already) and stop by periodically for news.

And please know that this isn’t an easy decision for me, I’ve been fighting it for more than 2 months because I’m stubborn and didn’t want to admit I can’t do it all.Please hang with me through this–the best is yet to come!