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I haven’t written a blog in a few days because I don’t know quite what to say.
I know there are blogs out there where people tell the most intimate details of their lives. Some are real, some are fake, as we discovered with a certain scandal a few months back. But real, or false, they tell their most personal stuff on their blogs. They treat the blog as if it’s a private diary, then post it so that thousands can read it.
I don’t get that. Protect your boundaries people. Protect yourself. Sharing everything is like giving all of yourself away to strangers. Some seem to get a thrill out of it, like a type of voyeurism. Some actually seem to make a network of friends to help them through their personal troubles. If it works for you, fine, but it would not work for me. Too many people take the information and use it for cruel purposes. And strangers on the Internet are not always what they seem, and certainly not always as friendly as they seem. So I’ll air on the side of caution. How cautious the rest of you are out there in cyberland is up to you, but do bear in mind that Trojan horse is a term alive and well in the modern tech. It’s still a term that can mean something very bad.
I’ve had a lot going on, all good, but personal. I can tell you we have a pair of robins in our holly tree. They have four babies. We have cardinals nesting in the rose bush. It’s the same pair that got their nest destroyed in a storm last year, by choosing a rose bush too flimsy to hold up. This pair has a real thing for roses when it comes to nest building. They even built a false one in a different rose bush nearer the house.
I can tell you that I’m almost done with A LICK OF FROST. Maybe by the end of this week, the first draft will be done. Strange, but this book I know what holes I’m leaving open behind me that will need to be filled, but the book is writing at such a pace that I know it’s better to leave the holes and come back, then fill as I go. When a book keeps a nice steady burn like this, you just feed the fire and worry about the messy bits later. Unless you want to derail yourself, which I do not.
I have about forty pages of the Jason novel/novel-lite done. It’s good and it’s fun, and I still don’t know if it’s going to be about two hundred pages, or about four. There’s a plot point that I’ll hit when I have time again to work on it (I am only working on it when I have my day’s deadlines met.). When I hit that plot point depending on what happens there, I’ll know whether it’s short or not so short. I am content to let the plot and the characters run. I find this new role for Jason to be interesting. I love having written a character for years and suddenly discovering new depths. People ask, how do you stay interested in a long running series. Answer, my characters are like my friends, I don’t grow tired of people that interest me. I find that if your careful, and listen more than you talk, you’ll find that even your longest time friends will surprise you with revelations and news. Not everyone blurts out all of them all at once. Most people keep their secrets, not on purpose, not to deceive, but because it’s personal and it’s no one’s business. They keep their secretest until it’s time to share. I think it makes the sharing all the more special.