Where Have I Been?

I just realized that I haven’t posted here since December 19th and I honestly don’t know what to say for myself. To give you a quick update, the holidays are usually a nightmare around here (we start out with Thanksgiving, roll into my oldest kid’s birthday, skid into Christmas and New Year’s, then waddle toward my youngest kid’s birthday, by which time we’re all feeling bloated and somewhat pickled), but this year I added running my own fiction workshop to the mix, which began the last week of January. I loved doing it and I had what was probably the best mix of workshop participants I’ve ever had, but I find teaching to be fairly all-consuming and, before I knew it, it was March. The workshop is done now and, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been jumping back into my novel, “Travelers,” and enjoying being in the world of the Arkansas delta, 1930. The biggest writing battle I’m fighting right now (besides the constant struggle to find the large chunks of time that I crave, but rarely get) is to forgive myself for taking such a long time to complete this novel. Truthfully, I really love writing short stories and I enjoyed taking some time off from the novel in 2015 to complete two stories that were published shortly thereafter (“Not From Here” in Carve Magazine & “This Trailer Is Free” in Natural Bridge). But as I wade back into the novel, I’m remembering how much I’ve enjoyed it, too, even though the process of discovery has been a long, dark road. I’m telling myself that this is normal. I’ve never written a novel before and the experience has been humbling, to say the least. Still, I’ve come back to it and, happily, with a clearer vision for what it was supposed to be. For now, it’s the best that I can do.