Did I unfollow you on Twitter? Don’t take it personally. You didn’t offend me.

Like most of us, after 21 months of pandemic, I’m tired. I don’t need to go into the reasons why: we all know them.

Social media is both a blessing and a curse; a place to connect and relax, and a place to be embroiled in controversy. A place where I find readers, and researchers to connect with, and things about archaeology and late-antiquity/early medieval history I didn’t know, and a place to find authors and books to read.

But there is just too much of it. My Home feed isn’t giving me what I’m on Twitter for, primarily. I have to search for the people I want to interact with, whose tweets I want to read, with whom I want to check in. It’s not that you’re not all valuable members of the Writing Community – it’s that I don’t have enough mental energy left to appreciate you all. I need, for a while at least, to focus on history, archaeology, birding and nature, and the writers who write and/or tweet about these subjects. Mostly.

So I am culling who I follow down to fewer than 2000. How many fewer, I don’t know. Already my Home feed is looking better, frustrating me less, giving me the connections I’m looking for.

I probably – almost certainly – have unfollowed people I didn’t mean to. I hope I’ll figure that out over the next few weeks. If you’re upset by what I’m doing, I apologize for my actions inducing those reactions in you – but not for doing what I need to for myself.

Social media’s not the only place I’m pulling back. I’m not planning on doing any serious work on the WIP for a couple more months. Too many responsibilities, some self-imposed, others not, have come together just now. I’ll be culling those, too, as I can.

Let’s hope 2022 is a better year for us all.