The Snow Is Deep In West Virginia

It has been a busy couple of days in my world. I spent Thursday helping Mom and Dad get shoveled out from under the multiple feet of snow that they've had on the ground for weeks on end, went to Roanoke Friday and then came back over to Mom and Dad's Friday and spent a huge chunk of today (Saturday) helping them shovel out some more.

Friday was a nice day since I hadn't been able to get out with Bethany lately. She found her a pair of much needed snow boots and I snagged some quality reads at the Paperback Exchange, three Star Trek novels and Julie & Julia for under $10. I'm comfortably covered with reading material for the next two weeks and then I'll happily renew my library card at the Clifton Forge Public Library to get deeper into the Aubrey-Marturin series since I just finished The Mauritius Command.

Blood & Steel is coming along nicely and I'm at a critical point in the writing. I've been mulling things over for these past three days and I think I may let my pen rest until Monday. Sometimes it takes a couple of days away from the notebook to ponder over things and let ideas take form inside my head. It's a part of the writing process that you don't hear much about, but it is absolutely vital to the end product. I spent a laborious day over three pages because it was pretty critical to get a certain character's reaction to a situation down because it will determine how he behaves for many pages to come.

I'm five days away from finding out if I survived the first round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel of the Year Award. I'm pretty excited to find out, one way or the other. If I don't make it, I'll just move on to something different. It is important to keep in mind that writing contests are all subject to the whims of the judges, be they good or bad. The feedback I've been on The Crownless King has been pretty encouraging and I think that if I don't win this, I'll see about getting someone to help me through the painful process of finding a different and larger publisher, since I hold all the rights to the novel.

That being said, I still really want to win.