I’m sorry.

There’s no other way to put it.

I’m sorry I’ve fallen so far behind in my reviews that nearly four months have gone by since I’ve published one. That’s not to say I haven’t been working on them, heavens no. Unfortunately, the stress of trying to balance responsibilities and creative standards left me with a severe case of burnout. And that’s on top of everything else that’s gone on since, for good or for ill:

  • Putting together everything for the storyboard class I would be teaching, including mastering Google Classroom and putting general paperwork in order was exhausting.
  • I was asked to teach another online art class, this time by the folks who run an annual city-wide art show I’ve been a part of for the past two years.
  • I’m partaking in SCBWI’S Summer Conference since they’re holding it online instead of Los Angeles this year, which meant revamping my portfolio again, completing new artwork and preparing to meet and query new contacts in the field.
  • My sister got (legally) married in my backyard the first week of July and I stood in as a witness/Maid of Honor. Fun! Not so fun was the large amount of people she invited for the barbecue afterwards who didn’t wear masks or abide by social distancing rules. I suffer from allergies and spent the following fortnight thinking every cough and scratchy throat meant the end was near.
  • I had to marathon the entire first season of The Umbrella Academy in less than a week in order to edit a full video review of it for Krimson Rogue before Season 2 premiered. (On the plus side, now that I’ve finally watched the show for myself, I’m excited for the next season!)
  • I got into the top ten of the Mx Disney editing competition and I’ve been going into editing overdrive near the end of each month to meet the crazy deadlines.
  • Anxiety. That is all.
  • And no, I have not watched Hamilton yet. I will once I finally have two and a half hours to fully invest myself in something that doesn’t directly involve me shaping it.

So here’s how it’s going to go. When it comes to this blog, I’m still going in the order things were meant to, even if they are horribly off-schedule. The next review finished will be The Great Race, followed by the (very late) fifth anniversary review, and then I’ll be taking some time to kick off the series of Faerie Tale Theatre reviews, which should be out by the end of the summer at the latest. My original plans for the fifth anniversary was to revisit the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake and share my thoughts on it, but two things happened:

  1. I have A LOT to say about the remake which means it would be a very, very long read; so long in fact that I may have to split it up. Also I wasn’t entirely looking forward to watching it again and didn’t want to mark such a momentous occasion by nagging in 6000-plus words.
  2. This past weekend I finally got some down time to myself and wound up revisiting a classic that has long been a favorite. It’s resonated with me at the best of times, yet none more so than at that very moment. Maybe I was in the right frame of mind, maybe it was the timing, but after everything that’s happened in my creative pursuits up until then, I was so moved by this picture’s simple message that I was compelled to write about it.

And there you have it. They may not be excuses, but they are something. One plan I also had for the rest of the year was to look at the first five movies I reviewed and see if they (and what I initially wrote about them) held up, though that might have to be swept off the table too unless you really want to them also.

Hope you’re all having a safe and fun summer, and hopefully I’ll see you soon.