She's baaaaack.

Wow, did I pick the wrong week to quit cocaine.

I mean, start blogging again! I've had a pinched nerve in my shoulder for 7 days now, when I'm not sweating hot from the heating pad or completely numb with ice, I'm in screaming agony. So I figured, what the heck - start a new blog!

For the record, I never claimed to have perfect timing.

But this is something I've been meaning to do for a while now, and I guess other things conspired to make me finally go ahead and do it. Most of you know me, know my writing and my occasional fits of existential meltdown. I think writers are prone to being just a bit outside. At least, all the one's I know are.

Okay, maybe it's just me. Learn to adjust !

Ahem

Now, as for topics, reasons, paranoid expressions and other sources of inspiration for this new blog, I'll I can say is . . . They are many. First and foremost, I suppose, is the recommendation that all writers have a web presence. Typically that means either a really spiffy web page they can use to promote and sell their newest, latest and greatest published work, or a blog where they can entertain and inform readers who already bought their newest, latest and greatest published work. Or a combination of the two, so long as they're kept up to date and informative.

Sure, no one can ever accuse ME of remaining up to date and informative - but that's what I'm here to change. In fact, in these last few months a lot of things have changed. My views, my stories, even my attention span. This could be a rather long post, I hope you brought snacks.

Back in March of '06, I joined an online community of writers at Absolute Write in the hopes of learning the ins, outs, ups, downs and important things about writing and getting published. My goal was to take this (insert descriptive phrase here) writing talent of mine and see if I couldn't get published in the traditional sense. I always thought being found on the shelves of Barnes & Noble would be the cat's meow. It's a great place to go and learn, especially if you have no clue how the "real world" works, or you need some help with the technical aspects of writing.

I recommend Absolute Write to anyone, even the hobby-writer.

But I offer up a caution, as well. If you're not careful, you might find yourself spending so much time there, you have no desire or need to express yourself creatively elsewhere. You'll stop writing, you'll stop blogging, and you'll begin to feel the zest being sucked out of your marrow. Then, when you start to realize that, you'll also take a look around you and realize you've just answered the same silly question for the hundredth time. Or you'll swear if you see one more person ask for help in naming a character, or picking a hair color for their antagonist, you're gonna scream.

Then there's the typical bilge that builds up whenever hundreds of humans get together. Things get silly, then turn stupid. It's normal, but I'm getting too old for that sorta thing.

So I realized it was time for me to get back to what was important. My own writing, my own blog, my own creativity. Those of you who do know me, know my work. But what you don't know is how much it's been changed. I did some long, hard thinking about Keeper and the sequels, in between some other novels I'd completed, and realized just how special the Keeper series is, but also how it had taken a few left turns when I should have been driving straight. Add to this the epiphany of a completely new, completely separate series that has popped into my furtive brain. One that - while standing independent of the Keeper series - actually will benefit from a lead-in, and occasional cross-existence.

That all just sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Trust me, it'll make sense when you read it. Seriously.

But in order to accomplish that, and in order to bring the whole Keeper series up to the level I had originally intended, required much editing, rewriting, retooling and rethinking. And I would dearly love to jump the gun here and say that a publisher is interested in the series, but truth be told, that gun-jumping is in such an embryonic stage at this point, it won't help any to elaborate. I'd hate to have to come back and eat all that humble pie.

It's fattening.

I suddenly find I have a lot to say, a lot to talk about, a lot to discuss with my 'peeps' here in the blog. I'll make a list, so the well doesn't jam up or go dry in the summer heat. Lots to go on about writing, the publishing world (as strange an animal as that is) what means to write and be read, with occasional side-trips to talk about lapidary arts, pets, stupid things people do, etc.

As for the web page, I'll be putting up some samples of work, snippets of stuff, stories that will never see the light of publishing, things to check out. I've been reading on many different agent blogs how fans "love to read cut scenes, or interviews with characters, or back story for your work". I'm not sure how true that is, but if there's interest, I might think about that. It could be fun, maybe. That might be an interesting way to introduce the new characters that will make their debut in one of the later Keeper sequels.

So to my fans - feel free to leave comments and we can chat about stuff. To my new visitors, feel free to say whatever you like (within reason, okay? Let's try and be civil, or someday I'll figure out I can delete you).


To the rest of you - well, you're not here then, are you? So I can talk about YOU all I want. HA!