Time Off Means Things Are Back on Track

The Stanley Hotel, where stressed writers makes deals with the devil.

I haven't posted an update in a while. Life has been a little nuts, and I felt like I was floundering for a while and unable to organize my thoughts. I was in a funk, and I was trying to start a new project, but it wasn't going well. See, the last novel I wrote just flowed. I finished it in a little over a month. It was the easiest time writing I'd ever had. But this time, it was hard. I couldn't get the beginning quite right. The tone and voice were off. It was way too serious, and even though this is, at heart, a dark story, I wanted a lighter beginning. I wanted something mundane to balance out the darkness to come. And so I finally latched onto it, and I got to 20,000 words this week. Hurrah!

I've also been taking a class called Writing From the Heart. It's pushed me to delve into the things I hate, fear, love. Really, anything that makes me feel deeply. I've been wanting to take a course like this for some time. I feel like I hold back way too often when I write, and if I could just push through, I could create some really amazing stuff. This week I came up with an idea that excited me, and also scared the poop out of me. Horror story, here I come!

And as if that wasn't enough, I've begun final preparations for publishing the sequel to The Graveyard Girl. I'm looking forward to getting this story into the world. With all of this going on, is it any wonder that I had a hard time focusing? I guess not.

Run, little steer!

Sometimes the best thing to do when you're stuck is to take a break. So I went out of town with the family this weekend for Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's a huge rodeo, or as they like to call it, "The Daddy of Them All." Being from Texas, I enjoy a good rodeo, and Frontier Days didn't let me down. I watched bull riding, bronc riding, roping. There were horses and steer, and cowboys and cowgirls everywhere. The one odd thing was, there was also a drone at the rodeo. It hovered over the field like a giant mosquito. I'm not sure what exactly it was doing, but it was creepy.

Cowboys prepare for competition

So this week I will slowly get back into the usual frantic pace. It's back to writing my latest novel, working on another to prep it for publication, and finishing up my class. It's back to work, and laundry, and errands, and preparing the kiddo for school. But I feel energized by my break and ready to tackle it all like a cowgirl bulldogging a steer.