I Sidestepped into a Jive in the Middle of a Foxtrot.

Nothing quite beats steady work like a good productive distraction in writing!

A dear writer friend – we also happen to know each other from going to college together in the *cough80s* – came up with a great idea that involves donating a little to a scholarship for her daughter to attend a great program this summer that will lead to her dream. One of the incentives is an anthology of stories by an array of writers she knows.

Check out the fundraiser here: Frankie’s Dream

Most of you know me as a children’s writer these days, but I really started out in poetry and short story, so I was happy to dip back into the writing that I love and that really comes easiest to me, for the sake of sending her kid to a great experience this summer. My understanding is that after the specific fundraiser is over for her daughter, any sales of the anthology will go toward a scholarship fund for this camp program in the future. It’s a great cause and the stories should be fun, too. She knows a LOT of Romance writers, so I imagine many of these stories will be pretty steamy…

When I have more info, I will share, meanwhile, you can get your own copy of it by clicking on the link above and donating. Thanks!

Frankie is a pretty cool kid who has a steadfast dream to be a conservationist since she was little five year old. I know I was dreaming of being a circus horseback rider at that age, or a variety of other dreamy schemes…. This kid is solid! Give her a headstart into the sciences!

Writing and why it hurts so good

Weird to be writing a blog post about the poem that interrupted the story that was waylaid by the next novel idea in this evolving companion series that is pocketed before I get back to the novel I am currently trying to finish.

Can anyone else relate? Without going into too much, chalk it up to my usual mayhem, I was not sparking on anything for months. Now that one or two life things have transitioned a bit, the ideas are popping again, fast and furious.

I was going to write more, but above was notes from this morning, and I can’t recall now what I was going to say otherwise, because, I wrote and posted the poem and now I really need to write the story for my friend’s fundraiser that I started last weekend!!

When that is done, I may write the story for the picture book i’ve been delaying for two years at least, with my artist friend, and then just maybe, I will be able to dip back into the “current manuscript” I am working on.

Oh, I recall now, these shorter things, poetry and short-short story are really where I live writing-wise. This is what comes easy to me. The longer arc of a novel is more like work, even though I really love exploring the depths and layers of the tale, it is so much harder for me to write like that. So, I  need to pull out of the manuscripts now and then and play around where I’m more comfortable, and love writing again, for the sake of the creative spark.