Hi there, I'm just writing to let you know that things have come to a bit of a head for me offline. Work has been pinching me hard and I've been trying to push ahead with my professional writing but finding myself ever shorter on time to channel effort into it. That's had a massive impact on my mental health because trying to succeed as writing is a huge part of my personal identity.<br/><br/>I'm in a privileged position of being involved in a number of stories here on E, all of which I've been enjoying. I also feel a real sense of duty to all my writing partners, and seek to match the effort they put into our stories. But it's got to the point where every time I sit down in the evening to write, I feel that tug of duty to give the replies I owe before I get around to my personal writing. This inevitably means that I<em>never actually get around</em>to putting serious effort into my writing. I only have a few hours each evening, since I am a parent, a husband and I have a very demanding full-time day job.<br/><br/>It's the proverbial rock and a hard place.<br/><br/>But one thing everyone here on E seems to agree upon is that 'real life comes first'. Writing novels, pitching them to agents and publishers, and improving my writing in critique circles and generally trying to get my writing 'out there' all touches on real life more closely than my writings here on E.<br/><br/>So as much as I hate to let people down, I'm going to have to be tough with myself and say that I can't proceed with our story. I would be happy to say we can put our story on long-term hiatus until I can afford more time, but I don't know how long that will be and I don't expect people to keep hanging on for me.<br/><br/>I don't want to deceive anyone - I<em>will</em>be keeping a couple of stories going on here, but those will be the ones which are able to proceed at a decent pace even while only posting only infrequently. Essentially, I only want to have to come onto E once every couple of weeks and be able to clear the decks in one go.<br/><br/>I do apologise for how frustrating this must be. I've got nothing but respect for everyone who's put in the time and effort to put together a story with me. I hope you can understand.<br/><br/>All the best,<br/>Oli