2010: 160 Days. Happy with the results

I think every writer at some point in their writing career experiences a time when their writing has taken a back seat to life. Mine certainly has these past several weeks. It's inevitable. Cars and homes need repair, families need our attention, gardens become terribly overgrown (because we haven’t tended to them in a couple of years because of the writing), work demands zap our creative energy, and life goes on. We continue to cram every possible thing we can into a day and, like I said, at some point something has to give.


Last week was an especially difficult week that began with a shattered car window. It was immediately followed by a broken water heater part that took a week for Sears to deliver, a tornado that touched down just outside of town (thankfully it missed us!), and the whole mess of a week was topped last Saturday when I took our 12-year old Boston Bull dog to the vet thinking she might have a bladder infection only to discover it was a tumor. I was so advanced that Maggie had to be put to sleep. It was heart-breaking to do, but in truth, it was the best thing for her.

Through it all I managed to continue to work on Shroud of Lies. Amazingly, the manuscript I began to write on June 18, 2009, is done seven days shy of the anniversary of its inception and I’m pretty happy with the results.

Now I feel I'm better able to get on with the darn synopsis.