Forgot to tell you I've got a rough draft of the werewolf story, BENEATH THE NEON MOON, done. I kind of love it. I'm thinking of putting it straight to Kindle after I finish and have it edited, but we'll see. I'm halfway into a very fun little piece called EROMENOS (formerly called HOME), which is what I'm subbing to eXtasy for the GLBT anthology. It's about two guys in their third year of college by the names of Xander and Seth. One of them has a little destiny thing going on with none other than a...Greek god?

snippet (nothing whatsoever of the mythos here):

On Friday night, keg central was located three floors up in a cheaply built apartment complex less than a quarter of a mile off campus. The music was loud and the walls matchstick thin, but the complex was populated with students who didn't seem to mind the noise. One of Xander's teammates, a guy named Dave, manned the tap. Dave was blond and exotic in some indefinable way, thin and tall, almost matching Xander's ridiculous height. His expression was remote, possibly stoned, as he looked out over the crowd spilling from the living room onto the balcony. He spied Seth, and his gaze sharpened. He winked slowly, deliberately.

It wasn't the first time. Seth was pretty sure that trying to embarrass him had climbed high on Dave's list of ways to entertain himself lately. But Seth had downed a lot of beer, so instead of his usual confused flush, he tipped his head back and downed everything in the cheap plastic cup, throat working. Looking directly at Dave, he lowered the cup and licked his lips, then curved a hand over his dick and squeezed.

Dave's mouth dropped open. The next girl in line at the keg thrust her cup out, and Dave picked up her free hand and fanned himself, laughing loudly enough that Seth heard him across the room over the noise. The girl snatched her hand back and poked Dave in the chest.

Seth smiled, his gaze roving over the room, and saw Xander staring at him from the doorway to the hall, his face unreadable. Seth flushed and looked away, the sense of victory he'd felt swamped by a curious mix of embarrassment and exposure. When he looked back, Xander was gone.

Seth walked across the room morosely and stood in line for another beer, but Dave beat him to it, bringing him a cup and knocking his own to it. They downed their beer in unison.

"How long you wanted a piece of that?" Dave asked.

Seth glared at him.

"I mean, uh, had a thing for him?"

Seth didn't answer, looking intently at the nubbed carpet under his feet.

"So ever since you met. Huh."

“There's no thing,” Seth mimicked scornfully, then sagged under Dave's steady, if bleary, gaze. “Shut up.”

Dave clapped him on the back. “You need another beer.”

So, it stands at 2,000 words. Not much, right, but it's plotted out at least. Tentatively titled HOME.
What do you think of a god who ruts like a goat and possesses like a demon? It's my version of Pan with a few other notions mixed in. Like college boys:)

I was looking at an old horror story I'd done under author K (Han and Greta). You know how Stephen King writes about houses with psychic energy remnants set in Maine, right?
In my stories, gay or straight, contemporary or paranormal, there will always be CHAINED OR ROPED MALES.
It really doesn't require comment, y'all.

I'll confess to you guys - I don't know how this works, but apparently I am amongst the nominees for the 2009 Rainbow Awards - so vote if you liked Touch Like Breathing :)
http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/804431.html (I'm in the 16th category down the column.)
Also, I've completed a rough draft for the werewolf story finally. I kind of love these guys, and I plan to write a sequel. With a good productive two weeks under my belt, I am seriously flirting with a  "cracked the writer block" dance. I still have some issues but I've done a lot of work trying to uncover what's going on. One, I lost my enthusiasm for falling headlong into a good book (hard as that is for me to realize). It took my Amazon wish list to help me see it. Two, I have a serious problem at home with getting the time I need to put into writing. I'm not talking about finding the time (which is hard enough), but finding the time without multiple interruptions. That's the big one, and I've stayed up basically all night the last two Sundays to find the peace and concentration that I need. Now I'll see what I'm going to do next in order to get some time without a bunch of concentration busting interruptions.

Anyway, back to the werewolf story (BENEATH THE NEON MOON) - as I said before, it's gotten way too long for the anthology and I have plans to flesh it out some during second edit. Plus with a sequel planned, I think it needs to be released as a single title. I'm putting it aside after this week to let it settle a bit while I head into the (real) antho story. Mulling some things - I'm feeling extremely Halloweeny (it is so a word) so I want some dark scuttling clouds, maybe a full moon, some ancient pagan worship and possibly some outdoor sex. My bestest girl has suggested Pan would do nicely, that devil.

Some progress! 2,500 words on the story yesterday. I'd like to think the writer's block is broken, but we'll see. There's a lot involved in it.
Anyway, the story is now much too long for the anthology. Augh. Now what? Write another story for the antho and sub this?  Because this one doesn't need cutting, it's pretty spare as it is. And I think sooner or later there's going to be a sequel for it.

Note to Clare if you see this: It's the werewolf thingum I sent you part of.

I'll be trying to finish this one and thinking about something new to write, around 10,000 words. I had something in mind for a much longer story. I've got something else that already is too long, also crazy as hell. Hmm... I'm kind of into weres for the moment. Vampires always, though I know everybody and his mother writes them, and I don't have a published story out about vamps yet...

thinkthinkthink

You guys know by now that I'm still fighting a serious writer's block. It's kind of breaking my heart. I love writing and yet it has become so hard. Not to say I'm not writing - and I wasn't before, so believe me when I say I will take that as progress. It's disheartening that it's become so hard. I just keep writing around it, a big fucking boulder square in the middle of my chest that I keep working around. At least I think the work I'm putting out is decent, though it's put out in small blocks which sometimes causes me some continuity problems. 

Listen, I'm not giving up. I've always been a slow writer. I will never give this up. If anybody at all is reading this, if any of you are interested in whether or not I'm putting anything else out, I just wanted you to know that I am. Just not at the speed I want. The werewolf story is drawing to a close and it's longer than it should be (hope eXtasy will let me get away with it and how's that for professional? But they've always been such great people to work for, and frankly, when they get their hands on it I'm hoping they'll like it lots at the length it is). The other story I have going on is around 20,000 now and I'll be going back to it in a few weeks. I have some other stuff going on, too, but yeah...slow. Shit, so slow.

I call it a writer's block and it is to some degree, there's a hard block of procrastination going on, so powerful. More of it has to do with feeling overwhelmed and I know you've all heard that and it's either get over it or... QUIT. Not so easy to get over, though - my 6th grader is having a rough transition to middle school and she's willing to put in the time to keep herself an honors student and so am I. Usual family stuff, kids.

Writing is so huge to me - I need time and quiet, concentration. It's a job but it's more, I have to feel it to write it, and sometimes I just don't have it in me to do it.

Well, anyway, I haven't written much here, so I'm posting to say I'm not quitting, I've got more stuff coming out and I'm still around. The thing is, you name this problem and people start to assume things like well, shit, she's not writing anymore. I am. That's really all I wanted to say.

That, and here's an excerpt for fun. The story is about two guys chained up together in a basement (ha!) and one of them's turning werewolf for the first time:

He woke himself up talking in his sleep, looking up to find Mal staring at him in the dim light.  He couldn't read his expression.

"What?" he asked, blinking. "Did I do something?"

"You were dreaming. Pulled against the chain."

Zach winced. "Sorry. Why didn’t you wake me up?"

"Didn't sound like a good dream, whatever it was,” Mal said, ignoring the question. “Said something about your dad. Called for him." Mal looked into his eyes. "So where is your dad?"

"He died years ago."

Mal nodded, looking away. "Yeah. That's what I thought." He paused. "I wasn't sleeping anyway."

"What’s up?"

Mal cocked his head. “Worried about my sleeping habits?” His pupils were huge, a thin edge of hazel surrounding them, his gaze intense, hint of something wild there. Instinct prickled over Zach skin, waking him fully. Mal shrugged. "I don't know. Just wasn't. I was listening." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Did you know there's a rat nesting over in the far corner? She smells like—she’s warm and her heart beats so fast. She’s burrowed underneath some junk under a rusty grill, I think. Got it lined with old newspaper. Reminds me what leaves smell like in the early winter decomposing on the ground. Only drier and not as nice…dead a long time. She has seven pups. You hear the squeaking?”

Zach sat up. He tried to make himself sound normal, though all kinds of alarms were going off inside him. "I don’t hear anything.”

“Yeah, I bet. I guess you didn't hear Aaron and Kane upstairs just before they left, either. They were in a hurry. Their scent’s changing. Like mine. There were some odd sounds upstairs before they left, too. You didn't hear them leave, right?"

Zach's pulse quickened. "Guess I was asleep." He tried to sound off-handed, a little irritated. "What odd sounds?"

Mal shifted closer, leaning over Zach. "You know those changes I told you about? I can tell when someone's nervous now, Zach. I hear your heart beating, your respirations. You know what I think? You know something about the changes in them. In me. I think they told you something."

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I tell you if they did, Mal?"

"Because for some reason you don't want me to know what's happening."

Zach wouldn’t look at him. "Paranoid much?"

"Which leaves a big question for you. You're not changing. You're hooked to someone who is. Why? And why would you need to hide that from me?"

Zach stared up into the darkness. "What do you want from me, you want me to make something up?"

Mal's lip curled. "Yeah. Didn’t think you’d tell me.” When he spoke again, his voice was low, so low. “So what should I do to get you to tell me, Zach?"

“Mal. Stop,” Zach whispered.

Mal scooted closer, staring into his eyes. He smiled, his lips curling wide and thin.  

“What is it, what’s happening to you?” Zach breathed.

 Mal lowered his head a little, still staring, so close now. At this angle the slant of his eyes was noticeable and his gaze was cold, calculating.“Don’t insult me by acting as if you don’t know. I thought you wanted to help me.”

“I do.”

Mal’s upper lip lifted. “You know.”

 Zach swallowed, looking back at him squarely. “You think I do, anyway. So what are you going to do about it?” His voice was soft, barely there.

Interesting thing happened to me yesterday.  I checked on my ranking for the Amazon Kindle versions of  “After Anna” and “Touch Like Breathing” – AA was doing pretty well, in the top 100 in the gay and lesbian category (Kindle books: fiction: genre: gay & lesbian). For some reason later on I checked again – my novellas were no longer listed in any category other than Kindle books in general. I wrote Amazon and the customer rep apologized, said they’d get to it within 2 to 3 business days. I have a bit of a problem with that – first, why would Amazon go to the trouble of removing my stories from the category at all, why do it arbitrarily, and why wasn’t I notified? So I wrote them back, telling them my sales would fall without readers being able to see them in the appropriate category, and could they try to get if fixed ASAP? Again they wrote me, almost immediately this time, telling me they needed at least 48 hours. Note they wrote immediately but couldn’t put me back in the category. Honestly, it seems like it’d be a very simple thing.

So I went to twitter. Posted under #amazon!fail. And I’m back in the appropriate categories and my sales have risen quite a lot, all of that within an hour of posting on twitter. Coincidence? 
 

Link to the Kindle novellas: http://tinyurl.com/lm4qj7

I have a short story up today at Three Crow Press ezine for their August issue called THE BEGINNING IS THE END. It's pretty much a story about a transformation I never actually name. Definite adult content.

And in the end, it turned out that he knew even less about himself than he did Jane. For example, he'd never have believed he could kill another human being. But there she lies on the floor at his feet, body ripped apart. Just like Jane. Like Lucy.

I have to note that although as usual, Three Crow's presentation is lovely, the italics are stripped from the story - not my preference.

I'd recommend checking out their artist of the month - they haven't picked one yet that's less than amazing.

I expected nothing for my birthday. I'm just not very invested in it somehow, not after having kids.

So what did I get?

A note from my 11 y.o: "Anything can happen when I'm with you," and "You're the best mom ever and don't ever forget it!" My best friends got me 2 dvds, some perfume that's almost unattainable now, a couple of books I'd been wanting, a coloring book (Garfield, ha!) and crayons. My mother took me to lunch. My husband got me sushi that evening, and bought me a pair of jeans and a box of candy. My kid is making me a cake today (yes, late but that doesn't matter a bit). Online friends wrote me a haiku (or four), online cards and a snail mail card.

Plus my best friend got me over a writing hump in the werewolf story - she's smart and supportive, as strange as I am and completely irreplacable in my life. I think I'm much luckier than I ever realized.

It's so sad.

Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

Jim at Rainbow Reviews has reviewed After Anna (4 stars) and Touch Like Breathing (4.5 stars):

Quote from the AA review:
"After Anna" is told in short, staccato-like chapters that lend an urgency and intensity to the story that is reflected in the actions and dialog. The author does an excellent job of getting into the main characters' psyches and giving them valid reasons for the way they feel and act.

and a quote from the TLB review:
There's a lot of angst and drama in this story, but some lighter moments too ~ one quite hilarious episode where a drunken Tyler tries to give Will head when he's driving in heavy traffic. Ms. Black shows a real flair for comic writing in this part, and once again got my undivided attention as the two men share their hopes, doubts and fears as the story unfolds. Sometimes sequels can be a bit of a let down, but I found this one to be even more gripping than the original story. Highly recommended!

I'd like to thank Jim for the wonderful reviews, and I'm so glad he enjoyed the stories.

It's for a GLBT anthology coming to eXtasy. I have no timetable for its release, but I'm guessing the end of the year or beginning of the next. It's sort of a southern werewolf tale, two men trapped and one of them going wolf for the first time, called "Beneath the Neon Moon" - my best friend came up with the neon moon bit thanks to an excerpt she read, and I loved it. Here's a small bite, a flashback bit:

When he was seventeen, he and his dad had stayed the summer in some boggy little town in Florida, Spanish moss dripping off the trees. There were plenty of empty, sandy spots in between the boiled peanut stands and the gas and beer marts off the lonesome stretch of US 231. The air was hot and wet and still, and the bugs so raucous up in the trees at night you could hardly hear yourself think. One night Zach heard his dad cursing and yelling outside, then heard something like a car backfiring, cracking loud and decisive. He scrambled up off the sagging old couch, heart pounding, and ran outside. His dad was drunk, flinging firecrackers into the branches of the two trees in the front yard and yelling goddamn bugs shut the fuck up fucking driving me crazy—and Zach stood there and watched, mouth open and eyes big. Then he leaned against the railing of the ramshackle wooden porch and laughed until he was nearly sick. His dad looked over at him and laughed too, bent over and thwacked himself on the knee.

The next night his dad went out, just like always. No big deal. He just never came back. Zach woke up the morning after that with a bad case of flu that only got worse as the day went on. By the time evening came around he was sweating buckets, then freezing, out of his head with fever. He huddled up on the squeaky, narrow bed and waited for his dad. He didn’t come.

When the fever broke at last, Zach couldn’t manage to walk all the way to the bathroom, had to crawl the last few feet. His head felt weird, floaty, and he kept worrying fretfully about his dad. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d left, but it felt like a long time. Too long, even for him.

The next morning Zach finally felt up to heating some chicken noodle soup on the stove, then managed a shower by sitting on the cheap plastic floor of the stall. He dressed in a baggy tee shirt and some jogging shorts and went back to bed. That same afternoon the landlord came to tell him his dad was dead—shot right outside of the Lobster Bar. Nobody knew exactly why—the local who’d killed him was so drunk he barely remembered getting into the argument to begin with. The cops had come to the house twice to tell him the news, but nobody ever answered the door. The landlord figured Zach had already skipped out. He was awful sorry, but he had to have the rent. He couldn’t afford to run a charity. Couldn’t be helped.

( spoilers for the show.. )

So. My laptop died last week, right. At first the computer guys said they should be able to get the old info for me, but no dice - it seems something physical was wrong with the hard drive and it frozenated two of their computers when they tried to get the info off. So, total loss. I'd backed up almost everything I wanted to save (somehow I forgot my wallpapers and backgrounds, sob) two months ago, and luckily was able to save the stuff I'd been writing on because I email it to myself all the time (what? is that weird?).

The hubby let me use his laptop for the 5 days it took me to get the laptop back with a new hard drive in it. And do you know what I did? I managed to get him a virus that LAID WASTE TO HIS LAPTOP. AVG can't get rid of it (it freezes up). There's some tech guys out there somewhere who can evidently get rid of it but doing it is time consuming at best and useless at worst. I found a page that tells you what to do - it involves lots of steps and I can't even understand the instructions. Dave took it to the computer shop and they said most likely they'll have to wipe out his hard drive.

Me. I did this. Gah.

The threats AVG listed all were imbedded in the Systems 32 folders and were called SKYNET. I tried to ferret them out with my limited capabilities but no go. So watch out. It'll eat your computer alive.

Anyway, Dave said he doesn't have anything on there he really wants to save. My youngest daughter had a story on there she wanted to save, but luckily I saw it while I was using his laptop and sent it to myself via email a day or two ago, thinking she's want me to post it up for her on her webpage. ("Weird Hamsters in Love" is the title - look for it in your bookstores one day.)

I'm Black Death. I feel really bad for Dave.

Not to mention the years I'll get of, "Remember that time you wiped out my laptop?"

Hide your tech if you see me coming. And pray.

MY LAPTOP IS DEEESTROYED. Auuuuuggggh. My daughter played on my beloved laptop (not that she did anything to it), but when I turned it on later, it froze. I had to reboot. EXCEPT IT WOULDN'T, no matter what I did. *clutching head, screeching uselessly* The repair place said so sorry you suck the big one, but we can probably save your info. *insert another clutch scream* I'll find out tomorrow.
Like, my stories, my super sekrit stash of porn and vids and stttttuuufffff. I am so bent over and screwed.
*wail*

I started this months ago. There's a two-pronged focus to the fiction which I'm not sure is working for me. One, there are angels that channel themselves through a young man named Samuel. He has looks, personality and smarts - all set to go forth and conquer the world, but then angels EAT his brain. They speak through him. Which maybe you'd think was okay, but these guys aren't really cherubic angels, they're strong and terrifying and they have a purpose in mind. 

 He's in church:

<“Samuel? Sam, what’s wrong?” Clare asked. 

“She’s coming for me.” Samuel squeezed his eyes shut, the lines of his face taut, terrified.

 Preacher Caleb gripped Samuel’s shoulder gently. “Who’s coming for you, Samuel?”

“She is. Nonono—” Samuel grabbed his father’s hand. He looked up at his parents and sister and then Caleb, beseeching, his eyes wet and wide.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Sam,” Caleb said, his voice gentle.

Samuel’s face shifted, sardonic and bemused, eyes slitted and older than the ancients. “She won’t like you calling her whore like that. Even if that’s what she is.”

“What— Caleb looked confused, but then his face cleared. “The Bible names her whore. Who are you?” Caleb said.

“It’s Sam, preacher,” Samuel’s mother said, looking puzzled and afraid, and, “Of course it’s Samuel!” his father exclaimed, but the preacher shook his head.

“Look at him. Does it sound like Samuel to you?”  

Writing in the morning, then plotting/thinking out obstacles during the day so I have something to put down the next morning worked out nicely today. When I say nicely, understand I'm still not putting out a lot. But after what I've been through the past few months, I'll take it. I don't know why I feel I have to qualify this. 

Well, yeah I do. I'm slow compared to so many other writers I know. Guess it's defensive. Need to get over it.

My husband wants to chat in the mornings, but I'm getting up to WRITE. I feel kind of like a jerk. He's so sweet in the morning.

eXtasy and Tina (the owner) has been busy lately - my books are now available for Amazon Kindle, ebookwise, All Romance Ebooks, Fictionwise and Mobipocket. TOUCH LIKE BREATHING has moved up a couple of hundred places in erotica at mobi over the past week, which makes me very very happy:)

New routine (weekdays):

Get up at 5:30-6 am, grab a cuppa, walk the dog, write, get ready for work.

Bad side of new routine:
Okay, so not enough sleep. I knew that would happen when I decided to get up early every day and write before everything else. And it's sometimes bad enough that I have to move, take a walk or something so I don’t feel kind of sick wanting more sleep. But then again, I’ve had some sleeping issues for years, so it's nothing new. The sandy eyes, the need to move - it seems when I get up early I really feel it, vs. getting up at 7:30 without a lot of sleep.

My old dog doesn’t want to get up that early. She isn’t enthused for the walks. She has arthritis and I bet it’s bothering her worse in the mornings. On the other hand, she’s always been a rather spoiled princess (seriously: I could tell you stories) and maybe she’s just looking at me and thinking crazy woman, it’s barely light out.

I haven’t actually produced lots of new material. Which makes it feel a little daunting.

Good side of new routine:
Focus has improved by a mile, enthusiasm is shaky but there (and much better than the discouragement thing). Plotting is carved out inch by inch but it’s going forward, notes are made and in place per my normal writing procedures, and I have a direction. I’m a little hopeful – not that things have miraculously gotten better, but that my chances feel so much better to get some words down again and tell some stories. I have made concrete progress.

To meander a little: I know that it’s more than practical once you’ve found markets that’ll actually publish you to, well, try and appeal to those markets, but what I love about writing is expressing exactly whatever it is that's on my mind and fascinates me for the duration. At this point, my writing career is pretty open, too – not like I’ve had enough money to sway me in any way:) So what I’m saying is that I intend to pursue whatever it is that makes me happy to write and then try to find a market for it, rather than shaping my writing for a market at this point. Or I'm incredibly naive/stubborn. We'll see.
 
I’ll tell you this – eXtasy books gives in-house authors a chance to do their thing. Otherwise I don’t think they’d have taken AFTER ANNA with the ending as written. But I’m just as much a horror writer as a romantic/erotica author, and I think that terror is a fine-edged foil for intense feelings, including romance/sex.

Of course, I can on occasion do some fairly straight-forward schmoop. I have a work in progress that’s very much that type of story. I just don’t want to be limited.

Whatever's going on, I'm setting up incredible blocks for myself, so I guess I have to acknowledge it. I't's kind of hard talking about this stuff. Maybe no one is even out there (which hey, not as if I don't talk to myself anyway!), but maybe it's a good thing to talk about it here, on the record and for myself. Maybe somebody's going to come along and go, hey, I know JUST what she means. Sometime.

I'm writing some today but the block to even starting was incredible, and so powerful that I have to examine it. This is my deal and my doing and I've got to deal with it, right? So, my current theory is that I'm so completely wiped with RL and even an investment in writing, which is SO IMPORTANT to me - feels almost beyond me to do. I don't think I can negate the fact of how incredibly tired I am, and that it saps my enthusiasm. But there's more than that - a lot of self-negativity is going on inside. I feel very isolated, and I see on my flists where another book's being/has been written, another page, another 10,000 words written by someone else and there's all this joy and enthusiasm about it and I just feel inadequate. It's not jealousy or sour grapes - I wish my fellow flisters TONS of enthusiasm and success with their work. It's just something that makes me feel bad about myself in comparison because I'm LACKING so badly.

Here's the thing: I can string words together. I can plot, and I can write emotion. I know this. It's just...not easy. I think I come at it like I need to write something so good, so complex that I'm not vulnerable to criticism. Which is ridiculous, I can't write something perfect.

No... not quite right. I have really high expectations for myself. I can take the crit when I'm convinced I've done the best I can. It can't be perfect, I know that. But satisfying myself - that what I have done IS the best I can do - is a bar I'm having a lot of trouble with.

Now back to it.

Edit: Hey! I finished my sex scene! Excitement. I had to push hard against these stupid barriers I've put up. I think writing something here about it helped. TG

I have poison ivy. ON MY FACE. Around my nostrils. Heading towards soft tissue (shriek)!

They gave me 12 days of Prednisone and my brain is leaking out of my ears.

I know I'm not around much, but if you happen to be around, have anything you feel like asking, if you have an urge or want to see something, ask. I'll PROBABLY do it.

If not, maybe I'm saved because I am roid raging and cannot TRUST MYSELF.

so yesterday I managed 1,100 words. This morning was my first attempt to get up earlier and seize the day - learned a couple of things. I actually have to allow for time to cuddle my kids because they love coming in and hugging a few minutes before they get their day going. That put me 15 minutes late into my walk (but well worth it, naturally - who couldn't use a cuddle).

Also: writing sex takes me more than an hour. May have to relegate writing sex to days when I have more time, or just see how it goes piecemeal, maybe - but today it just felt rushed.

Time to admit I'm having a bad case of writers block. It's not that I don't write, though I don't do a lot during any one session. There appear to be several obstacles. My focus and flow are shot. My brain just isn't firing on all pins, so that anything I put down is in splinters that I have to tie up and bundle together later on. I've been able to do so but it involves getting down whatever it is I have to offer at the moment and then smoothing it all and building bridges in each subsequent writing session. I've test ran a couple of sections elsewhere and it seems to work, but it's so damned slow. Frankly, the ease of writing is mostly gone. I've had a couple of sessions where I've been amazingly productive and everything flowed, but those are the exceptions to the rule.

What's scary is that this has been going on for so long for me. It's important to me to say that I'm not giving up and have no intentions of it (not to say I don't have occasional tearful tantrums over it).

There's probably more than a few factors hindering me. I really can't find the time for a basically uninterrupted regular writing time. Even when I announce "I'm writing," there's family and kids around, asking questions, wanting hugs, chatting (yeah, poor me - not:). Writing this, I do think I need to set some firmer rules around my writing time and interruptions, but also, this family is loud and distracting even when they're not interrupting. (I have two pre-teen girls.) Like with so many people, there's SO MUCH going on around me. Now, for instance, we're almost through the school year with the girls. Soccer's just ended and basketball won't be until the fall. Typically for summer we lay off a bunch of extracurricular activities, limiting it pretty much to K's Brownie troop meetings and some occasional hikes in the mountains, so that would seem to be better for me to start working in earnest at this problem, but this summer we're residing the house and getting new windows and gutters so I'm in the middle of financial and other practical details for that right now. It's always something, right? So there has to be a set time. I have to MAKE IT.

When I was in college in the graphics art program, I had a drawing class. We had to turn in 10 sketches a week that we'd done outside of class. I became very proficient at drawing. After the class was over, I stopped doing the sketches and when I tried to get back to it, my focus and effieciency at getting what I wanted down on paper was gone, just like the writing - splintered, nervous work, discouraging in the extreme. So I HAVE to have a regular time to practice it.

I'm in no way a morning person, but I think my next step has to be getting up early and doing the writing before work. After work and dinner and chores around the house at night, I have no enthusiasm or energy for my stories, so it'll have to be mornings. I also walk in the morning, 40-50 min., which usually gives me a little jolt of energy, so this week I'm going for it. It'll cut into sleep time which I really hate (I'm an off and on insomniac), but maybe I can manage to go to bed earlier instead.

I'm just so miserable and frankly feel like a failure. Sort of feel like I'm sinking.

I'll post up reports as I can (for myself more than anything), maybe talk about the several works in progress I've got to encourage myself. I love to write so much but somehow I'm just not making things work.

Wish me luck.

I saved a rabbit today:) I think. I'm pretty sure. I hope like hell.
 
This wild, pretty bunny lay at the side of the road in the grass and wiggled when I and Thumper went by on our walk. He/she couldn't move, but his eyes were bright (and scared). There was nothing I could do with the dog in tow, so I headed home. I got a box, lined it with a hand towel, put on gloves and went to get me a wabbit. Poor baby was still there, so I picked him up (or her, I don't know) and put him in the box, which he didn't care for much. There may have been a small bone poking through his leg, and there was a small amount of blood on both legs but they weren't crushed - and then I was in the van with bunny in hand, rubbing his little shoulders because he didn't seem to stir so much when I rubbed (probably thought I was getting ready to take a mouthful of wabbit shoulder, poor baby).

This wasn't a well-thought out plan - I knew UT's vet school took in hurt wildlife at one time, but it'd been years since I'd dropped in. Couldn't quite remember how to get there, so I get to a stop sign and call Cass, cradling the cell phone on my shoulder (yeah, imagine me bowed up double), one hand on wascally wabbit and the other on the steering wheel. Anyway, Cass googles, gives me the address and off we go. Such a cutie pie, with his big dark eyes and brownish fur. They took him in, said they had a rehabber who takes the bunnies in after they get better and releases them into the wild again in groups. I checked the box that asked them to let me know how he/she is, so here's hoping.

Send him/her your good karma:) I found a picture online that looks a lot like him/her: