IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE…

As Thumper's mother said to him in Bambi, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all." Well you might wonder why I've been absent without an excuse for the past months in 2012. It's because I didn't have very much that was nice (or interesting) to say. Only my faith and friends got me through this year.

2012 was a difficult year. It was a time of worry, a time when things that I never expected to happen, happened and at times, overwhelmed me. But that is in the past, or I have put it in the past and resolved (even before New Year's Eve) that it will change. Oh, I tried to write. I'd come into my studio, sit at the computer and think of who I should contact and who I owed an email to, and just go into brain freeze and end up playing Free Cell, Solitaire or Hearts. I didn't seem to have any trouble doing that.

As most of you know my true love, after Lenny, is writing. I started what I thought was my next novel in May 2012 (tentatively called The Journey Back or The Truth Will Set You Free although I don't really like either of those titles. It is in a holding pattern because I just was stuck. Then in September 2012 I had another idea and started another novel (tentatively called Sissy after the lead character - the real title will come to me later). I seem to be able to continue with this one but it's slow going. Still I am determined to at least finish one or the other in early 2013. What has changed? Nothing really but I am convinced this is what is going to happen. I have faith and am determined to reserve a small amount of time each and every day no matter if it is while Lenny naps or in the wee hours of the night (I am a night owl but have become addicted to some silly television programs.) I think they make me concentrate on something else but that's not a good idea at all. If I write, I'm thinking of something I really care about. So, I'm going to try really hard to keep this self-promise.

I have been thinking of how to make this change because sometimes when you get out of a routine it's difficult to get back to the place you really want to be. So, I've challenged myself to either work on the manuscript(s) or at least blog two or three times a week. I have heard of an idea for blogging that promotes a daily blog by going through the alphabet. Maybe that might work. Whatever! I'm going to give it a try. I know I might have lost the few followers I had because of this gigantic hiatus but I'll give it a try. It might be fun and it might just keep me on the right tract - Writing -- after all I am a writer.

See you in the (very) near future. God bless you.