A few days ago, I recieved a message from one of our fourteen contributors: “Hey Kelly, I’m helping someone write a book and I have ten special letters to write for a ceremony over the next two weeks.”
Then two days later from another contributor: “This is such a busy time of the year. I think I’ll need to write ahead so I can take a break over the next few weeks.”
Then, another writer: “Hey Kelly, ___ is filling in for me because we have to leave for Dallas at 4 in the morning.”
All these quotes are paraphrased, but I think you get the picture. Collectively, our team was experiencing more stress than usual, they have been turning out posts (some of them) for almost nine months. Two of them have written more than 30. We won’t talk about my numbers. I was feeling it too. The last two weeks in Spring simultaneously represent final homework to submit on my part, final grading, finishing preparations for summer interns, guiding the completion of those who served in the Spring, the final weeks of legislative session, etc. “Et Cetera, Et Cetera, Et Cetera!”
“All Quiet on the Western Front” was a movie made telling the story of German soliders’ fatigue and reaction to extreme stress during WW I. I’m adopting that as a theme for our volunteer writers at the Red Dirt Chronicles. I told them we should take a two-week “quiet period.” “Write if you’d like, don’t worry about it if you need a break.” No one protested, and many sent messages of relief. Therefore, I’m deploying this post to let you know that our “Quiet on the Western Front” time period will be for two weeks. Our normal schedule may or may not (probably not) be followed during the “Quiet” time, and you may or may not see everything you normally see.
We will, however, be deploying content: The Imaginary Family Project will still run, we have posts coming up soon profiling a Storm Tracker and a local singer-songwriter, my Garden will still be growing, and Mark is still listening to music. Some of our contributors will have substitute writers take their places. Others won’t. We’ll let you know when things get “noisy” again, and the Western Front has returned to a place of greater activity. Until then, we hope you continue to stop by, re-read some of our past work, refer our site to your friends, colleagues and family, and check out what we DO post.
And, we hope you have a really wonderful week yourself. After all, we’re kind of getting attached to you…and we’re beginning to count many of you as our friends and community.
Take care now, ya hear?
[kelly]