I’m sitting here behind the computer and find myself lost.  I’ve spent so much of my time the past three weeks getting Wicked Tales for Wicked People ready, I haven’t worked on anything new.  When I started off the year, the usual goal of ten published stories was pushed off.  There are only so many hours in the day and I wanted to make sure the collection happened, I finished and submitted The Calling, and I wanted to get a good chunk of the White Creek novel finished.  Those three goals are pretty much done.

So…

I’ve missed writing short fiction this year.  While working on the longer works, I realized there is a hole in my writing soul only popping out a few short stories can fill.  The first round of edits on Southern Devils will be back to me soon and I decided to heal that hole by doing a few shorts this month.  There were a few new ones in the collection, but there have been some very evil ideas floating around in my head I’m ready to jot down.  These ideas also exist as a mound of papers with notes jotted on them all over my desk.  If I sneeze on them, I will be buried and killed by the avalanche that ensues.

I guess for me, short fiction can be a release and an escape from the grind of working on novels.  I never understood the toll writing a novel takes on one’s mind.  During the last weeks of The Calling, I did nothing but think about the plot and rethink every bit of the novella.  Truth be known?  It probably gave me an ulcer (not really, but you catch my drift).

Now, I sit here and I feel like I have some freedom to go and ruin some lives on the page.  There are some interesting calls out there I have some wicked ideas for.  I’m going to leave you now, on this holiday weekend, to go and enjoy life with family and friends.  Me?  Oh, I plan on some family time and seeing Ghostbusters in the theater.

But I know I have a submission call to make by Monday night and the tale is only written on paper.  The keys beckon me and I must obey the crushing will of the muse…

She calls me and I can’t deny her my blood.