I have the flu and I'm trying to write anyways.

Hey kind readers. Hope all is well with you all. I have the flu and like a dummy I didn't start taking some medicine until yesterday. This is making writing harder than usual, which is to say nigh impossible.

But I'm trucking right along. Today is Proof Day, or day one of Proof Day. I'm giving a final pass to an edited draft of Dysphoria. Adam Van Winkle of Cowboy Jamboree Press has worked hard to get this edited draft into my hands and I'm trying to do right by him in return. It's all for the better of the novel. It's all about getting another story out there in t he world. Man, what a noble goal, right? Yes indeed.

I've stopped first draft work on The Orchard Is Full of Sound for the time being. But I'm close there, too. I've only got three more sections to finish and that book will be initially ready for the Sept. 1 deadline. Of course I'll tinker with it and add and delete and rewrite daily until that date. It's just how I write books. Always tinkering and twisting and refitting until the very end.

What do I plan on doing once these two contracted books are finished or near-finished? Well then I've bought myself time to write short stories. My break from writing is writing, no lie. I really think that after writing everyday for the past 30 years that I just write everyday now; it's just something I do. It might not always be good sentences, but I'm in there swinging.

Ten years ago this October I started writing here at Bent Country. The lit community was a different scene back then, but much the same, too. Writers supporting each other, etc. Some of my frequent readers are still friends, but the energy has went a little, or something. I'm not sure. I'm still in very infrequent contact with many of these folks - xTx, Mel Bosworth, Roxane Gay, and Marcus Speh, for instance. But there are others who only existed in that magical two or three year period such as Dave Erlwine, Cami Park (rest her soul), and Chris Okum, to name a few. What am I trying to say? I don't know, really. Things are different; it seems like all of us either wrote our books and had them published and then sort of went quiet or we are still in there sending out stories and writing books and just babbling all hours of the day. I'm of the latter group, and I'm not sure if it's the best group to be in. I just no I'm always going to write, so why not share it with people if I can.

So I'm off to proof some more and probably jot a little on a story or two today. I'm got one story in the oven right now I'm really excited about, but I can't remember what I've titled it. Strange. Maybe ten years doesn't just take a toll on creative energy.