I’m taking the summer off.

Well, not exactly. I’m stepping back from Citizen Dave and my other blog until Labor Day, but I’ll still be writing.

For the last few years I’ve been stumbling around with a biography of Wisconsin’s underrated 41st governor, Tony Earl. He served just one term from 1983 to 1987, but his term was among the most consequential in state history. During those four years Earl helped shape the new Democratic Party, for better or worse. And he was just a heck of an interesting guy. I thought he deserved a full length biography of his own and so I wrote one. Wisconsin Watershed: Tony Earl and the New Politics of the Democratic Party, published by Michigan State University Press, should be out late this year.

I had so much fun researching and writing that book that I’ve decided to write another. But this time, rather than just writing the book and then looking for a publisher, I’ve decided to try to find a publisher for a project before I do all the work. Brilliant. I know.

And so that’s what I’ll be doing this summer. I’ll be working on book proposals and getting them off to agents and publishers. And I’ve found that my blogs, while great fun to write, take up a lot of my limited writing energy. I figure I’m good for about three hours of writing in the morning. After about 11 a.m. I’m up for some lawn work, maybe a bike ride, probably a nap. That’s about it.

So, I’m putting Citizen Dave on ice. If you come across it in the cooler just shove it aside and get to the potato salad and the cole slaw and the PBR. It’ll just be taking up space.

I’ll see you back here in September. Have a good time, but remember. There is danger in finding other bloggers.

Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.