Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Whew...long title!  Sorry for the EXTENDED absence, friends.  This particular year has been one that has been trying and has most definitely gotten in the way of me doing things I love.  I have put aside a lot of my creative outlets to focus on things that had nothing to do with my personal fulfillment and, in doing so, may have lost a little bit of what I loved about me.  While I don't really do resolutions as I find they don't tend to stick, and why would I only declare that changes can be made in January instead of year round, I am going to make a heartfelt effort to get back into doing the things that I love.  So...as 2019 winds down and 2020 gets ready to greet us at the door, I am currently making lists of things that I want to do with this platform.  While none of those things include revenue (I don't have the time or luxury to commit to that much in the blogosphere at this point in my life), they do include posting with more regularity and variety...

"Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out."  ~John Gardner I've always said that I want to write a novel...a good one (hopefully).  Really, I'd like to have a career writing novels, drinking good coffee, and traveling, but I just can't seem to bring myself to sit down and write it.  I've got ideas; loads of them.  Yet, somehow every time I sit down to write nothing comes out.  Just blah and a blank page...mostly.  It's really a disease that I've had for as long as I can remember.  Well, I take that back.  When I was in elementary and early middle school I would write short horror stories.  This was due to the fact that, at the time, I was OBSESSED with R.L. Stine books.  Not the Goosebumps series, but the Fear Street ones.  The ones meant for an older audience :)  Obviously that's not the vein I want to go in now.  I'd li...