Welcome Back...

Hey. Welcome to 2009. A bit late, I know. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened to the time. Where does it go? Can we get it back? No? Huh...

I really don't have a great excuse for being gone for so long. Life happened. I guess that sums it up fairly well. Too vague? Ummm...okay. Specifically, I spent a lot of time with the family and they got used to hanging out with me more. They're spoiled! After spending most of my free time last November working on the Nano book, (and thank you wonderful wife for allowing me to use all that free time for writing) I thought it only fair to spend time (especially around the holidays) with the family. I love my family, so I've enjoyed the extra time with them as well.

But now...I'm looking to find a happy medium. Time with the family AND time for writing.

Yeah....we'll see how well that turns out!

In addition to hanging out with the family, I've also worked to reorganize our unfinished 'basement.' My office is now nicely tucked into one corner and I'm surrounded by my books, both fiction and non-fiction. I like my new digs - and I'm looking forward to spending more time here writing. With my office moved out of the family room, it opens up that space and makes for more play space for the kids. I've learned something about their toys--the two-year-old's toys are big, the five-year-old's toys has many pieces. In short, all their stuff takes up a lot of room (and rather than having toys scattered all over the house, I'm working towards locating their toys in two rooms - the family room and their bedroom. We'll see if that 'plan' works!)

As for the writing front, I have worked towards improving my writing by reading. I've read Stephen King's book, "On Writing", Donald Maass's book, "Writing the Breakout Novel", Les Edgerton's book, "Hooked: write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go", and I'm currently reading Jessica Page Morrell's "Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writing" and Nancy Kress's "Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint." I've picked up a lot of great ideas along the way--ideas hopefully that will improve my writing and reduce the number of rejections I receive this year.

Ahhh, the children are demanding my attention now. Must go.

Have a great day, all.