til next time

Long time no see, right?

It isn’t as if I’ve had nothing to say. Promise. My thoughts and the inability to hold them in has plagued me for years. That hasn’t changed in the last few months, my free time and the level of life’s demands have. Cat & Mouse launched in early May (which sparked a flurry of promotional agenda items). Work and family needs once again superseded the call to write as well.

Which brings me to where I am now.

I am sixteen thousand words in on a young adult novel and rethinking everything I’ve written thus far. I want the characters to leap off the page and into minds both young and old. I want the story to be like nothing that’s been done; I want it to be so entertaining you want to read it again the moment the last page is turned. And it isn’t there yet. Rather than finish the novel and go back to make hard changes, I am trying a new method; the next few months will be spent taking down the sheet rock and tearing up the carpet to reveal the studded framework. It is solid but the things I’ve put around it aren’t up to my standards. I want it to be a house I can live in and live with.

Brent Smith of Shinedown wisely sings “life’s too short to run it like a race” and I wholeheartedly agree. That’s the other place I am coming from. In the past, I have rushed to get the next book out in spite of exhaustion and other outside things pulling me this way and that. That is changing. I’m three books in, and with my feet under me, I am comfortable in saying the book (tentatively titled Highly Unlikely) will come when it is ready and not a second before.

My growing fan base may not be happy with me and I get that. I understand it. And I accept it. In the end, we live on through the ones we leave behind and the love we shared with them. I hold that idea of legacy above all else. My two teenage boys, for whom Highly Unlikely is being written, still want me in their lives in spite of their age. They still want a hug before I leave and a kiss goodnight. Writing a novel that the world enjoys feeds my ego and makes me smile. Their kiss and hug warms my soul.

I can’t promise the blogs will come in greater frequency. I can’t promise my next book will be available by May of 2019. I can promise you that I’m still writing and that I’m enjoying life and all it has to offer. I promise to see you soon…

Til next time,

-P