Summer days are quickly slipping by me. I sit and write, and write, and write, and I see no end in sight. I believe this is how every writer feels at some moment. The story line is slippery. The loose ends are mocking me to try to do something that will make sense. My characters seem to be perpetually in a foul mood. My computer thinks it’s funny to reboot when I am on a writing frenzy.

To make things a bit more difficult for me, I decided to take the semester off from teaching. There are many reasons I choose to do this. But the number one priority was in finishing book five by the end of the year. I want to concentrate and it is difficult to do this when teaching fulltime. I am writing now, writing nonstop as I pick up side jobs. Freelance writing has its perks. I am able to write in my pajama’s, drink pot after pot of coffee and never have to wait to use the restroom. The downside of this is ... I am constantly writing.

What can I say? I am never happy.

One of the best stress releasers for me is chatting. I love chatting with new, interesting people. They keep my imagination flowing with new ideas. They make me smile despite my foul mood (this is for you HB). They make me think about my story, how it should flow. And the best part is when they ask questions that I never thought of (Thanks Lynn, absolute lifesaver). Yup, chatting away as I write, drink coffee, and smoke a pack a day is how my life is currently flowing. If you would like to help me out, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and/or Facebook. I always welcome the next riveting distraction in my so called life.

Book four of the DeDe series is finished. *phew* -- It has been read and reread and edited and tossed about and scrutinized and questioned and edited a bit more and discussed and ... well, ya’ll get the gist I’m sure. It is finished. It has been available through Amazon since January 21, 2013. I didn’t want to advertise its availability until I was certain everything was as it should be.

Yet, some my observant readers found Lord Malachi anyway, *thank you guys*, and have not only read it, but have contacted me as to the eventual release of book 5, titled thus far -- Lords of the Realm. Well... it’s a bit hard to pinpoint an exact date. I am a superstitious kind of gal, guys. The best I can do today is say it shall be finished by the end of 2013.

Writing is something I do because I love to write. I love to share my world with others. Writing is akin to an addiction for me, something I must do in order to be happy. Yet, I have a 9 - 5 that requires my attendance more often than I care to acknowledge. Don’t get me wrong; I love my students, I love teaching and frankly, it pays my bills. But writing, although my first love and true passion, must be scheduled around my reality for now. I hope that one day, one of these days, I shall be able to devote every waking hour to writing. But until then, I am caught in a never-ending juggling act between real life and my dreams.

Once again, thank you all for your encouragement and emails. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, or random thoughts you may have. I love receiving correspondence from my readers, keeps me focused on the end.

Sharon 

Click here for Lord Malachi on Amazon

It’s been a week since I penned the blurb for Lord Malachi. In that week, I have rewritten it more times than there are days. Every night I would come home, read it, stare for an hour or so, change a sentence, delete a passage, rephrase a saying and every night, before I turned away from the computer in utter disgust and frustration, I would find something wrong with it.

Something was always off; a word here, a phrase there … it simply seemed there was always something not quite right. My last attempt was yester. I spent the majority of the day doing things I had to do to maintain a steady paycheck, in between those chores; I would read the blurb, scratch my head and rearrange it. With the helpful advice from a good friend, I am ready to let it go. It is as good as I could manage; it has everything I wanted to convey about the book without giving away details.

Am I happy? Well, I don’t hate it. In my book, that is a step in the right direction.

I enjoy writing a great deal. I love losing myself, losing track of time, in the world I created. The characters are real, their hopes and fears my own. I pour all my excessive energy into completing my books in a timely manner and when I reach the end, I sit back and let it rest. I need to distance myself before the countless rounds of edits begin. That is approximately where I am now; finishing the last round of edits for Lord Malachi before sending it off to my BETAs. 

Now what has me thumping my head against hard surfaces is the blurb. How is it that two hundred words, give or take a few, can cause a near paralysis of every brain cell in my head? I didn’t have this much anxiety writing over 50 thousand words … why are two hundred so difficult? *sigh* I will get the blurb done sometime today! I need to get it done today. A full pot of coffee and a long playlist should help me along. I’ve about 14 hours to get it done and I have the first three words down. What could go wrong? 

Writing how many words per day on what chapter? Was I writing? Is this my creative work, my baby, blood sweat and tears on paper? Oh no, this trash is for work, not for fun. Remember, writing is fun.

Beta reading whose stuff?  It’s not the guy from the Midwest, or the dude from across the pond or the chick from up north … whose stuff is this anyway? And when is it due? Shoot, what email account did I receive it through? Really must keep a master list to keep track.

Must do some revising of my actual work … never really sure what step I am on for it all jumbles together. As it should, I keep reminding myself. It is a novel, isn’t it?

Freaking life. It has a nasty habit of interrupting my world. Life does not take into consideration my schedule, my needs nor my carefully wrought out plans. No, life seems to think it can do as it pleases and I must follow along. Well gosh darn it, I am throwing in the towel.

I am at the stage in the fourth novel where I am tentatively compromising my real life demands with the urgent concerns from my muse. Negotiations, so far, have come to a screeching halt. I am taking a couple of days off to enjoy sweet cocktails with tiny little umbrellas and no nutritional value in them what so ever. I think I planned a couple of courses of food during the week also. Sometimes, folks, you have to know when to step away, close your eyes, and … breathe.

I was in middle school the first time I ran across the name Ray Bradbury. I was rifling through the books on a shelf in a classroom, seeking something to read so I could skip the dreaded movie on self-love we were about to watch in ‘advisory’ class. My teacher, realizing I was looking for an escape, came to my side as I picked up first one book and then another and then another, shelving everything from a lack of interest.

She reached out, grabbed a book from the back and handed it to me. “Try this one,” she said. “It’s good.”

I stared at the book in my hands. The front cover was missing. The book was warped, as if it had been drop in water and left to dry. The pages were yellow and some helpful kids had written on the margins. I turned it over to read the blurb. Something about firemen starting fires to destroy books. I shrugged my shoulders and went to my seat, glad I had obtained her approval to do something other than watch the TV monitor.

And so began my journey of discovering the great tales from the intriguing mind of Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451, the book I was given that morning, would change my life. Up until then, I had read mostly junk food for the mind kind of books. There were no deep messages or philosophical statements about life or the human condition in what I read. It was simply fun reading, an escape. 

The story of Guy Montag coming to question society and his role in it left me wanting more of the same. I didn’t know, in my naïve teenage mind, that old books could be so thought provoking. I moved on to The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked this Way Comes and Dandelion Wine, always amazed with the worlds he created. 

Not only did I find a love for science fiction, I found an appreciation for older texts. 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells were but a few of the worlds I escaped to that year. 

Ray Bradbury passed away this week at the ripe old age of 91. Yet he will live forever in my heart, with his stories of the human condition and this crazy little thing called life. 

HBO aired the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Induction Awards last night and for a rare occasion, I watched TV. Music, you see, will make me do strange things. It helped that a few of the artists are on my all time favorites lists. Overall, 17 artists were inducted into the hall of fame but I’m going to keep this short and only talk about the three who make my playlist on a regular basis.

The first band would be Guns N’ Roses. There isn’t much I can say about them apart that I love their music. Each of their  albums are different and distinct. At the apex of their career, they were massive in popularity, their music videos epic productions. Their lyrics are haunting, the guitar riffs moving. The video below is one of their last big productions, before fame and fortune destroyed the band. 

The second band on my short list is The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love these guys and unlike the band above, they managed to survive the sex, drugs, money, fame and fortune scandals. They are still together and making music, each album maturing as they do. 

The third band on my list is the Beastie Boys. A group of Jewish boys from Manhattan / Brooklyn, New York City. Imagine everyone’s surprise when they decided to rap. Not only did they rap, they were good at it. It was a bittersweet moment yesterday, watching the awards, for the band was inducted into the hall of fame on April 14, 2012. The awards were shown on May 5, 2012 to the public on HBO but Adam Yauch better known as MCA from the Beastie Boys, passed away from cancer on May 4, 2012 … the day before the awards were aired.

The following video is a live performance of one of their biggest hits. It’s best to see the man who died doing what he loved and to see his audience enjoying his art. 

Writing is a struggle at times. You have to find time to write, find an elusive rhythm which helps the words flow, find a spark of inspiration to keep the pace moving, find the inconsequential details that make a story come to life, find the motivation to keep truckin’ when all you want to do is lay down and call it day.

And some days … everything falls into place. The atmosphere in the tiny cell encompassed by the keyboard, reference books and internet simply comes to life. Your imaginary friends start talking, confessing, yelling and demanding that you pen their side of the story first. And so you do … you immerse yourself into another world, forget about things like … food and people and the direction towards the nearest bathroom. You’re a slave to the story, desperately trying to catch the overflowing sentiments burgeoning in your mind …

... and then the freaking phone rings … or there’s a knock on the door … or that cat who adopted you knocks over your cocktail … or the washer decided to have a meltdown and is ejecting sudsy water in two different rooms … or someone you can’t be bothered with is clamoring for your attention … or a ding from the blackberry alerts you to work related woes …

And just like that … poof … you’re back at square … what freaking square was I at again?

So you struggle once more, to find the path that will lead you back down to another world. The one you would rather immerse yourself in … not the one you are forced to reside in periodically. Life has a way of intruding like that.