I usually don’t go this long without posting, but lately, life has been a bit full, shall we say. Full of parental concerns, full of pet concerns, full of writing and editing projects not directly associated with this blog. With minimal hair and teeth pulling, I finished my synopsis and query letter and sent the next women’s fiction manuscript off to a few publishers; I delivered the final version of a short story to an anthology I’m going to be a part of; I edited a literature review that included a listing of 138 references (it could have been worse); and I went on retreat and wrote 14,000 words on a forthcoming novel (the words were shitty, but they’re on the page!).

So I’m going to cut myself some slack here when I feel a little bad about not posting on this blog. That slack is deserved, right?

But I can’t get too comfortable in that space because that slack will run the risk of becoming too loose if I let it. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, the practice of writing for the blog keeps my brain and body nimble, keeps me moving in just about every area of my life, allows my creativity to spark instead of sputter.

That image of a spark (or in this case, sparks) is what I’m going to use to guide me going forward for a while, especially because the weather is turning colder and my inclination is to turn inward and spend all my time in other people’s books. Check back to see what those sparks produce!

Image of sparks by Dmitrii Bardadim from Pixabay.com.