As you might be able to tell from the date on my last entry, I’m anything but consistent when it comes to blogging. It’s just too much like my little lockable diary when I was a kid. I’d ask for one every Christmas and occasionally my mother would buy me one (she knew me well enough to know I didn’t need one every year). Then I’d start out with high hopes and a fresh pen, but somewhere around February my entries would drop off. Evidently I haven’t outgrown that pattern.
However, I do have a desire to blog so I’ve come up with a tentative solution. Right now I’m working on a novel that has been so much fun. Well, fun probably isn’t the right word since it’s set in the middle of a war and the characters are suppressed, hungry, and basically in pretty dire straights nearly from the first chapter. So I decided to write a journal (i.e. blog) about the process of writing this book.
But here’s the key to my guaranteed success. Since I’ve proven my unstable track record with blogging, I’ve decided that not only is this going to be a limited term blog topic – one that’ll run and then when I finish the topic I’ll take a break – but I plan to do most of the content in advance so I know I won’t let things lapse. Is that cheating? I hope not, because it’s the only way this can work for me.
The truth is though that it’ll record the journey of writing my current book, Brother’s All, which will release from Tyndale House next year (2009). It’ll include my early struggles with the project, another pattern I’ve discovered in myself, then what happens when things start to flow. I’ve just returned from a research trip to Belgium and Northern France, the setting for this book and Book Two (did I mention this is the beginning of a three book series?) and tales about that will be included too.
So if you’ve stumbled on this blog please come back! I’ll start posting my content in the next week or so (look for this around mid-August – that’s 2008, in case you’re wondering!).
And I’ll do a contest or two to win a free copy of one of my current books, The Oak Leaves (2007, Tyndale) On Sparrow Hill (2008) or my newest release My Sister Dilly (coming out in October 2008).
Talk to you soon – really!
Well, it’s a start!