and that was why there’s not been an update on this site, but that’d be a lie too big for even a pseudonymic fiction writer.  It’s been a combination of Real Life interference/distractions and waiting for others to get things to me (my husband took several months to get me the write-up of his reactions/suggestions to his 1st read-through of the 1st draft of my 1st novel – he got them to me in early January and I’ve not touched that piece again yet *sigh*). I’ve also gotten entangled in various debates about several important matters (well, important to ME at least) that have eaten into my very limited time that I’m not doing some kind of parental thing or other family-life-necessity task or doing something rediculous like trying to get more than 90 minutes of sleep at a stretch (I have bad insomnia, struggle with chronic pain that wakes me, and to top it off my youngest child – a toddler – has decided to sleep like a newborn for weeks at a stretch off & on this winter, often waking up fussing loud enough to wake other household members who have to be more coherently focused human beings in the morning hours than I unless I sooth him back to sleep. Even if I was of the mindset to do so, “cry it out” isn’t an option in our living situation, due to how many others are impacted by the noise).

Part of the hold-up with writing is my fear of completely screwing up linear time in my novels. I’m not a very linear person to begin with; I’ve said for years that I visualize time more like a Slinky than a ruler. When I’m writing, I tend to wander around the chronology quite a bit, and I currently am devising scenes for at least 4 novels that span several hundred years but are linked together by common threads (or loops on the Slinky that touch intermittently before stretching apart again as it stumbles down the stairs – I have children, so any Slinky of mine is likely to have some let’s-not-think-about-what-that-stuff-is-too-much goo on it that stretches like pizza cheese as the loops expand after coming in contact). I’ve decided to try creating a software timeline (because trying to do it on note cards just results in the toddler scattering them or scribbling on them or an older kid absconding with them thinking that they’re out for homework use). I then spent way too much time trying to decide which software option to experiment with, but tonight I settled upon Preciden.com for a first stab. It was a close call between that and Timeglider.com (I wanted a cloud-based one since I often switch computers multiple times throughout the day, so I didn’t want it only on my aging laptop or the family room computer… haven’t tested yet to see if it’ll work on my Android tablet, all the mobile app options I was seeing were iOS and I’m way too klutzy to spend that much on a device to carry around with me).

So… hopefully I can get some progress going. I’ve grounded myself from social media other than Twitter and blogging until I get at least a new full chapter written for one of these projects, but even though that resulted in my being completely unaware that Cleveland had it’s first-ever ComicCon until it was already underway (and out of the bounds of our family budget), it still hasn’t managed to light a fire of productivity under my buttocks. I’ll blame the fact that the area is set to break the record for coldest February just slightly on that (my older kids keep having days off school due to wind chills making frost bite a risk with more than a few minutes of outdoor exposure, which is completely wrecking my routines). Before it got too cold, I was making pretty good progress by parking in a parking lot and setting up my “mobile office” to write in the car for an hour or so after dropping the kids off at school, but it’s not been warm enough to stay in the turned-off car for more than 10 minutes for a LONG time now. I’m starting to get twitchy.