On the road to recovery...

        The last couple of months have been tough for myself and my family.  Finding the time and will to write during all of that had been so minimal that I thought that I had lost my ability and talent because a part of me felt that I just didn't have it anymore.  I had let the events take over my life, and I was tired of it.  I wanted that part of myself back, it's almost impossible to explain, but I knew that a vital piece of me was missing.  There's no shame in saying you need a break, there are times that I've found it all but impossible to just do the day to day and I had to learn that it was okay to say, "no" to anything additional. (and man was that hard to do)
         
          But enough time has passed now that I want to gain back that piece of myself that I put aside while being there for my family.  I can't believe how worried I was that I would never get this back, or why I thought that I could put it aside to begin with.I found my 'muse' again when I went to a Writer's Retreat, that my local writing group (Wichita Falls Creative Writers) put together up in the Quartz Mountains in Oklahoma.  

Sunrise at the Quartz Mountain Resort

           If you've never been there, I would recommend it, just because it was wonderful to leave the hustle and bustle of the city for quiet tranquility of the mountain resort.  It was here in the still morning air that I finally felt that 'stir' for my new novel.  Yes, that's right - a new novel!  I pushed five chapters out that weekend and I can't stop the voices in my head.  (It's okay to hear voices in my head, I'm a writer.)

           I started this year with a goal of 500 words a day and three submissions, but I'm thinking that I might change that to finishing this manuscript with enough time to pitch it at the upcoming Dallas Writer's Conference in May.  Am I being too ambitious? 

          I am just so excited.  In my whole life, this has all I have ever really wanted to do and now that I have voices back, I don't want to do anything that would quiet them.  I will let you know how the rest of the draft goes, but since that very prosperous weekend, I have drafted two more chapters and am working on the next.  For the first time, I actually know how my story is going to end, but I am enjoying the heck out of finding that journey with my main character.  There was a way that I wanted to send her in the beginning and I'm thinking now that I might have been perhaps too quick to judge, because she is constantly telling me how wrong I was to assume she would do things my way.  

          At this point in my life, you would think that I would know better than to ever assume that anything is going to go my way - and I mean that in the best sense because thank God, nothing has!

          I will tell you that I get frustrated sometimes, still.  I work full time, am a mom and wife, and have the same struggle as many other writers of finding the time to write.  Not to mention the fact, that when you finally find that little bit of golden time, you find yourself staring at a hideously white screen with the flashing cursor and you are so tempted to click over to Facebook to see what the rest of the world is up to...So you could say that I'm really excited to be writing again.