Don't Forget, the time to sign up for "Creating Space: The Law of Attraction for Writers" is slowly spiraling closer to the end. Visit the link to the right here for sign-up details.

Oh blessed day, I am writing a novel again! Oh the heady endorphin rush of the writer-at-work. This will be, when finished, my fourth novel. My first novel "Stranger in the Door," languishes in a drawer, which is what often happens to first novels. My second novel "Self-Serve" languishes on my computer, having come "THIS CLOSE" as they say, to being plucked up by Harper Collins in the good ole' days when I had an agent. (They bought another book with a "similar theme" they said). My third novel, which is really my second-novel once-removed (don't ask), "Shaky Grounds," is in the hands of Red Dress Ink and a partial at Algonquin Books for consideration. Do I fear that telling you this will ruin my chances? Nah. I've got the Law of Attraction on my side.

Now I'm beginning "What is Lost" [working title], and feeling pretty darn good about it. Not the it that it is now, but the it that it will become. I'm also working with the magnificent Alice Mattison this final semester at Bennington, and she's mentoring me on it. I've never written a novel with present time feedback on it, but perhaps this is the special ingredient I needed. I'm also story-boarding. You know, writing chapter details on little 3 x 5 cards (mine are multi-colored) and plotting out the few chapters ahead so that I have some structure. I've got nearly 100 pages (before Alice gets to them at least).

I'm toying with the idea of creating a novel blog-in-progress, but I think that might be dangerous.

I'm also collecting ideas. Yes, that's right. Any ideas that seem worthy of my knowing about them. They could become any number of things. Stories, fantasies, musings, articles, slanderous tabloid pieces, falsified essays...who knows.

I leave you with this bit from the Tao te Ching:

If turbid waters are stilled,
they will gradually become clear;
If something inert is set in motion,
it will gradually come to life.