I’m internalizing a lot right now, I guess. I haven’t been blogging, and it’s not a reflection on my ideas, or my fellow bloggers, or commenters, but just that I’m internalizing and letting my thoughts gestate right now. Working on the novel, tweaking, tying loose ends, all that fun stuff.

Funny how we go through times like this. Lots going on inside, not much coming out (in the blog).

I’m sure that as soon as I’m done with this little fallow blogging period you’ll be hearing a lot more from me. Meanwhile, when I am online (haven’t been much lately) I will try to get around and visit you all more and make sure I comment. Happy blogging!

Meanwhile the cat wants dinner, it feels like spring today instead of winter, and we have a new neighbor, called Phainopepla, who is really quite awe inspiring and graceful.

A recent Washington Post column queried Bloggers on the Reasons Behind Their Daily Words. Reading it got me to thinking yet again about why I blog.

I started my website back in 2000, when Shadows Fall was first published, for the same reason most writers do, to promote my work. Four years later I started this blog as a way to provide up-to-date content on my website and let visitors know what I was working on—basically as a way to keep the website from stagnating when too much time passed between novels. Little did I know at the time that the blog would engage so much of my attention.

The immediacy of this format holds a certain attraction. Type, click a button, and what you’ve written is published. But that has its drawbacks. As easy as email, which carries its own risks, a blog can suck you out into public view in a way that’s scary and in some ways deceiving. It’s easy to forget you’re putting yourself “out there” to the degree we do online. After all, I’m seated here alone at my home computer as I type this into a little window on my screen. It doesn’t feel public at all, at the time I write. (more…)

Last night my dad’s house burned down. It was there at seven-thirty in the evening. By eight-thirty it was gone. Destroyed in 39 minutes. No one saw this coming. No one’s sure what caused the fire, at this point. It appears to have started in a bathroom.

All five people who were in the house got out okay, with only their clothes—or in my dad’s case his pajamas—on their backs.

Life is strange, how it plods along, and then—poof!—a puff of smoke and a pile of charcoal is all that’s left of everything you own, as if it was a cruel illusion—which I suppose it is. Physical things create an illusion of permanence in an impermanent life. Love is all that lasts.

I’m still in shock, and I wasn’t even there. (more…)

Vikk at Down the Writer’s Path tagged me for the Four Meme.

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Library Reference Room Page
2. Editorial Assistant
3. Technical Writer-Editor
4. Novelist
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Linking the past days together— It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and I didn’t know. Isn’t that usually in January? I don’t pay attention to professional sports, and some years my only clue about when that event occurs is the date they tell you the winner of the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes will be announced, which doesn’t apply to me, since I don’t enter. If Ed McMahon shows up at my door it’s more likely to be about Neighborhood Watch, or because he just spoke to Johnny Carson and he’s heard I have an interest in contact with the other side. (more…)

Rhubarb tagged me to post my response to this meme.

Five Weird Habits: (more…)

If a fiction writer ever needed inspiration, Post Secret has to be one of the most likely places to find it. But I suspect most fiction writers are like me, with so many ideas they can’t sleep at night for fear they’ll never have time to use even the best of them.

View the blog, or read Post Secret the book, available at Amazon.

If I were perfect, I’d be able to write books really fast and post on my blog every day, like those amazing, super-productive super-people out there. You know who you are.

Unfortunately, I’m terribly slow at both, and I need to focus on one or the other for extended periods of time in order to get much accomplished at either.

I’ve been busy working on my book, so I’ve been away from this blog, the other blogs I love to read, and even my email.
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Vikk Simmons at Down the Writer’s Path asks Why write every day?

I read yesterday in The Writer’s Mentor that Mark Twain began writing the story of Joan of Arc six times over the course of twelve years. He said, “There are some books that refuse to be written . . . only because the right form for the story does not present itself.” Of course, he didn’t let that not-ready-to-be-written story stop him. According to the site linked under his name, Twain published nine works including Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad, and Pudd’nhead Wilson during the twelve-year period prior to Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

Regarding the need to write every day, the only question a writer in that situation ought to ask is: Do I want to write? If the answer is yes, even though what you think you want to write may be stuck for now, that doesn’t mean you should stop writing. (more…)

Of course my next question is, who is your blog for?

Dave Pollard, at How To Save the World offers a beautifully thought out comparison in his essay, Is the Blogosphere Like a Railway Network? I must agree with Justin, who commented there, Dave’s blog is often more of a destination than a way station. But then I find myself wondering if someone who thinks and writes like Dave knows of some other interesting blogs. My gaze drifts toward his blogroll. Then I realize, his post was a response to something he read on another blog, where an article asked the question, after its author read still more blogs. A viral form of communication is taking place. This is exciting and powerful stuff!
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