I'd almost forgotten.

During the last few of months, I wrote all the material for a new website, worked with the site designers, set up a new blog and dealt with all the resulting snags, helped create a book trailer, traveled for signings, visited bookstores for stock signings, did the revisions from h-e-double toothpicks, and been interviewed umpteen thousand times. I certainly don't regret a moment of it, but until yesterday, I'd nearly forgotten why I went into this business to being with: I love writing.

Yesterday morning, I went back to the Opium Den. My local O.D. (Starbucks) was just remodeled and they have new cushy leather chairs, so I plunked myself down and opened the folder containing the notes for my next, as yet untitled, novel, and I began to create.

Oh. My. God. It was so wonderful. It felt like a homecoming, only better. Brand new characters to get to know. A complex (and I do mean complex!) story to puzzle out. I felt a joy I haven't experienced in months. Maybe not since I started working on Before the Storm. Although I certainly loved writing After the Storm, I already knew those people and their story inside out and backwards. Now, I get to work on something completely fresh and new, and I'm very, very happy about it!

As I wrote the above, the Fed-Ex guy rang my doorbell, bringing me the line edits for After the Storm (wow, my editor works fast!) So my joy was short-lived, since I need to go through A the S one more time. At least I had that brief reminder of why I'm a writer, and that will keep me going until I can open that yummy folder once again.