Never look a gift analogy in the mouth. (Seriously. Too gross.)

After the last post, so filled with angst and obscure Word issues, I hit “Return” a few times, typed in “Chapter Twenty-Five,” and kept going. There’s more than one way to skin a Header command. (Geez, that sounds even worse than the post title.)

The new Last Chapter continues wending through the moors of invention, and, after consulting the runes, I’m back to scaring myself because the only way I can wrap up the book is to pull ghosties and ghoulies out of the closet–as in storage, not sexuality. Today, whilst receiving a wonderful massage–thanks again, Karen–and gently pushing out of my mind the guilt from not posting here often enough, I realized I’ve passed up many possible blog posts about my writing process.  I’ve been hiding it in the closet, too, along with discarded characters, weak descriptions, and failed plot elements.  It’s so dark in there, I have a hell of a time even finding the damned process.

I’ve thought it better to occasionally sound as though I know what I’m doing than to let people see the disorganization and interruptions, the endless flailing for a decent sentence, the bizarre rituals to crank up what passes for my imagination.  Writing has always been for me a hodgepodge of hard work, wishful thinking, and some small talent. Regardless of what happens in the book business itself, the effort to put words on the page remains the same. Every time I get in a tizzy about self-publishing vs. pursuing agents, or how I need to format my two mysteries into e-book mode, my word-count slows and I feel bad.

The blog is a quick way to short-circuit angst and redouble my efforts to bring Wisdom Court to life. Every writer I know ultimately gives as advice the old, true saw: Plant your ass on the chair and your hands on the keyboard.  Write. We can’t sell what we haven’t finished.