I’ve got a novel with an editor and an EBook on writing suspense in the pipeline, waiting for something to happen to push it toward publication. It’s an uncomfortable place, jammed up in a bottleneck.

Both these projects took a longer time than when I started writing.  For one thing I’m twenty years older. Life is less complicated and stressful because I’m no longer working full-time. It may look as though I have all the leisure in the world to write.

I wish it worked that way, but it doesn’t. I can’t stop involving myself in good causes, whatever kind of idiot that makes me in this troubled world.

There’s also a push to start a new novel. I asked my friends to shoot me if I ever did this to myself again, but the idea circles me in whispers, tugging at my sleeve, filling my head with characters dancing just out of reach. For a moment I only remember the joy and the fun in putting a world down on paper.

Why isn’t seven crime fiction novels, and the same number of practical writing guides enough? I used to look down on writers who didn’t work as hard as I was working. Privately I would say, “Talent is wasted on the lazy.”

Now, from the perspective of having written, marketed, and sold a fair number of books, I’m not so sure of anything. I know very well the world is not breathless with anticipation for my next piece of work. I know I’m not lazy. When is it enough?

In this hiatus of waiting for an editor to get back to me, and my writing guide on suspense proofread, I get to just live my day: take a yoga class, read trashy books, watch TV that everybody else is watching, and hang out with my new housemate.

I ignore the whispers. But they get louder and louder.

Here’s a link to my books on Amazon, just in case you feel like a good summer read.

Here is my current novel on pre-order at $1.99 By Accident

By Accident