It's Been Awhile...

I realize that I have been neglecting this blog lately, and it’s because I’m guest writing for other blogs as part of a blog tour for my book. This week, I wrote about my book cover for Renee’s Pages, and next week, I’ll be on one blog writing about finding creativity in the everyday and on another one I’m guest posting about screenplay vs. novel writing.

These are great opportunities, and I’m thankful for them, but to be quite honest, I only have so many blog posts within me to write. So… this blog suffers.

However, there’s also a lot of other things that have been going on  - on the forefront, last week I finally got an idea for a play that I want to write. Actually though, it’s a musical, and I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on where I want to go with it now.

I’ve written a few songs in the past, and up until now they’ve been just hanging out in my head or on my computer, but now I have a place to put them. I’ve written the first scene and I’ve already plotted out the main things that will need to happen, and I’m remembering how writing a play  (compared to novel-writing) can be more instantly gratifying. It just doesn’t take as long to get out the first draft of a play. Revising takes longer, obviously, but due to the nature of a play, you just don’t have as many words to physically write down. After all, you’re just writing dialogue. You think of action and sometimes you have to write some of it down, but most of that is handled by the director in the rehearsal process.

Some people have said that I need to be working on the second book to Scar of the Downers, and they’re right. I have been working on it and I will continue to do so. I had been writing that book at a good pace, but then suddenly last week, around chapter 6, I just kind of stalled out. I mostly know where I want to go, but I’m not sure how to get there.

An idea is a tenuous thing. It can be there one moment and gone the next. I’ve had a lot going on and some stress lately and it just shut my imagination down for a moment. When you are an unknown author, you have to keep reminding yourself that the whole selling books thing is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s going to take time for people to find the book, read it, decide if they like it, perhaps write a review or tell a friend about it. It’s a one book, one person at a time kind of thing.

Also, there’s the question of whether or not I’m going to have to have surgery to remove some lymph nodes. That situation has been weighing on my mind as well.  It’s distracting at times, to say the least.

Then, there’s this girl:

It's hard to believe our oldest is now ten. Happy Birthday, Katie!