I’ve made myself a promise to stop neglecting this blog. I need to write more. NEED to write more.

So here’s what’s up in my world.

Last Saturday I got to go to an intimate panel with four local authors and hear them talk about the secrets to their success. It was amazing and motivating and part of why I’m putting more work into this thing.

My current work in progress isn’t going great. It’s the third and probably final book in a series, The Rio Verde Series. I’m a first person writer so I have to be in my lead’s head to write her story. And I’m having the damnedest time getting into the head of Luz. She’s a wife and mother and those are things I’ve never been and never wanted to be. It’s wicked hard to focus. She’s also going through some pretty heavy stuff. She’s grieving a loss I don’t totally understand. I’m having a hard time getting into that nothing-makes-sense-in-my-life-and-I’m-tired-of-feeling-sad-all-the-time mindset. I keep reminding myself that I know grief. I’ve lost my fair share of loved ones in my 40 years. Easy deaths we all saw coming and were really blessings as the lost person was finally free from pain or illness. Sudden deaths that still hurt decades later — my grandfather, my world, when I was 16 to an aneurysm and my best friend just two years later in a horrible hiking accident. When I focus on those losses, especially those last two, I can write the story I’m trying to write. It’s just super hard to stay in that mindset because I’m not sad at all.

I’m super excited in fact.

This picture really doesn’t have anything to do with this post. I just had to include it because of it’s awkward majesty.

My birth mom C. and my youngest sister, M. are coming for a visit tomorrow. I haven’t seen M. in around 2 years because she’s been living in California and then New Zealand. Flights to visit her weren’t something I could afford so I’ve been missing her something awful. I’m anxious about having them come stay with me. Ever since I found my birth family 10 years ago, I’ve always gone to them. Now they’re coming to my world. My world of random animals, a house full of half-read books, notebooks scribbled with story ideas, and an entire drawer full of meds. Welcome to the world of a chronically ill, animal obsessed, spacey, messy writer. I’ve been cleaning and tidying my house for a week.

In other news I’ve been working on two manuscripts at once. I have the one that is due early next year to my publisher. And the one that I’ve carried in my head for 6+ years. It’s the one I really want to be working on but I’ve made a commitment in that other one so I’m trying to focus on it but it’s tough. I have learned though that I shouldn’t try to write two things at once. It makes me even more scattered and spacey than normal. So Losing Grace has been put aside while I write Healing Hope. I’d hoped to take Losing Grace to a writing workshop early next year. And then maybe to a big conference in the summer. It isn’t going to happen though. It wouldn’t be my best work if I rushed it and it has to be my best work. The story deserves that.

Let’s see. What else?

Oh, yeah! Here’s one more thing. A good thing. My 32 year old horse (really my dad’s horse but he lives with me so he’s mine) just got a clean bill of health from the vet. I’m glad because I’m not quite ready to let that old grouch of a horse go just yet. We can’t ride him anymore. He’s a big pain in the butt because he dunks all his hay in water which, trust me, in the Texas heat gets disgusting really fast. But he’s the Old Man and we love him and want to hang on to him just a bit longer.

Blessings!

~Elise

Side note: I just wanted to share this blog post by the lovely Amanda Palmer because it really spoke to me and I’m betting it will you too. (Warning: contains strong language. I you’re not a fan of the f-bomb, be warned.)

Oh! Other side note: My book, Fresh Faith, is up for cover of the month over on AllAuthor.com. Please go give me a vote.