Ok, so that sewing kitty gif sat up on the blog for over a month before I felt like I had something urgent enough to talk about to actually write up an entry.* It’s been that kinda of spring, so far. Thank goodness sewing kitty is adorable. Also, if you’ve come to this blog, according to my stats page, there’s an eighty percent chance you’re hungry,**  and there are plenty of recipes on the site, so really I haven’t been terribly worried, right?

Anyway! It’s not just that the rain has had me a little bit slow (holy, carp, I’m tiring of the grey weather!) it’s more than that. I’ve been working on some stuff that has my head in other places, and some days it’s really hard to hone myself to a clear focal point for the blog. Aside from the fact that soccer season is back in swing and I haven’t really adjusted to the schedule change yet, I’ve been working on another book.***

And this book is new to me – loosely, you could call it sci-fi, or urban fantasy (there are no spaceships, but there’s both tech and magic in it), and outside of a handful of short stories, I’ve never really delved into trying to put something like this on paper. I’ve always wanted to (one day I’ll write dragon fic!) but haven’t ever figured out how to navigate the doing. This is seat-of-pants stuff, and as a task-oriented person, and as someone who really likes to have a clear vision of what I’m doing, a little harrowing at times. (Also, I’m one hundred percent sure that this is not a book that I could show to at least four people whom I love very much, as they would cough at the content.)

Which is to say, the going has been slow – I think I started this thing some five years ago as part of a NaNoWriMo attempt.† I put it down for a year someplace in there, when I got stuck. I’ve been picking at it intermittently for what seems like a dog’s age, and cussing at it occasionally. There was a whole summer when I sat in bed and whined something to the tune of, “If I only knew what my staaaaatement iiiiiiiiiis – wahhhhh!”†† I wrote three short stories that happen in the same world, after sitting down to work on the novel and getting sidetracked. I made file after file of drafts, and made a bunch of print-outs. I sat down and made a synopsis. And then another one. I had an idea of the ending, but was fairly hopeless about the execution of said ending. And then I put the thing away again, and didn’t touch it for a while – four months, five months, maybe. Incidentally, that’s kind of a long time for a project  to sit, y’all.

But listen – something has shifted. Someone once described writer’s block to me as the time when your imaginary friends stop talking to you. Well, all of a sudden, they’re talking to me again \o/ And they’re rather chatty, actually. I’ve been nosing into my google docs while on break at work. I’ve been toting a paper printout and a notebook to the soccer pitch when Our Man Cub has a practice. I’ve been keeping a notepad on the bedside.

I’m not sure what brought on the change, but I welcome it. I could say that it’s yoga – my practice has been fairly steady again now for about a year, and nearly ready to bring to the next level. I could say that it’s my new attempts to meditate. I could say that it’s the lovely new community of women that I’ve hooked up with, whom I feel like I want to rise to honor. All of this has come together into a place where I can write long fiction again, and I am super stoked.

So I’m getting back into the groove of writing again, and there it is. This certainly doesn’t mean that I’ll be abandoning this blog any time soon. I just wanted to tell you what’s been up with the curious absence =)

***

* Oh, Maurice Sendak, you will be dearly missed! I spent yesterday waiting for Man Cub after school listening to NPR interviews with you, and just delighting in the things you had to say.
** According to my stats page, most people find this blog because they either want to know what they can do with a pound of ground chicken, or are interested in this pasta that Anthony Bourdain ate in an episode of The Layover. This tickles me, actually. The other reason people come to my blog is to find out where to hunt the Baradin Fox Kit pet. This also warms my heart. I’ll put up more recipes soon – promise.
*** I’ve written two before this – a novel that was published a few years ago on Lethe Press, and another one that was produced on Doublebunny, a handmade press (by handmade, I mean that every signature was sewn and every cover was wrapped individually – very fanceh stuff. Very time-consuming stuff.) Lethe also published a book of my poetry ages ago.
† Did not finish. Incidentally, I am one of those people who feel that November is possible the WORST time of the year to accomplish something like NaNo. A friend recently let me in on the NaNo Camp, which happens in the summer, and I’m a little bit stoked – I may try it again, if only to put more pages on this thing (finish it, even?)
†† Ugly summer. Also, the heat makes my brain fuzzy.