I'm a Tortoise

It takes a long time to write a book. Unless you happen to be one of those rare and gifted types who can sit down at your screen and hammer out a novella over the weekend, it’s going to be a process that takes up a good portion of your time and attention.  If you’re like me, you are constantly mulling over ideas and stories. In the pick-up lane at school…in the produce section of the market…while doing dishes…while watching people awkwardly engage in small talk in social situations…the mulling never ceases.  The actual writing though, that takes self-discipline and the ability to stay in your current story despite what’s actually happening in your real life.

It took years for me to finish writing Ransom of the Healer. I’m now what I consider to be half-way finished with the next book in the series, Rise of the Seer. I actually started writing scenes for Rise while I was finishing up the first book. Once again I’m trying to keep embers stirring in a story that is now over a year old. When I think about the places I have been in my own life this past year, I can justify how slowly the story sometimes seems to emerge. I’ve lost people. I’ve grieved. And I’m pretty sure that there are going to be places in this next book where I look back and see a reminder of the journey. If I’m going to have to go through grief, I’m at least going to find something productive and beneficial about it. The beautiful thing about being the creator of this world is that I get to choose the people I add to the story. It’s therapeutic to put a character in my story, if only for a couple of paragraphs, who will live on in print for as long as the book survives.

In case you are one of my treasured few who are eagerly awaiting Rise of the Seer, just know that I’m not going to disappoint us. I’m mulling and that inevitably leads to writing. Once that happens dishes pile up, laundry goes untouched, and ideas explode onto the pages of our next adventure.

I woke up to find this little note waiting for me on the coffee maker...