Boy, I hadn’t realized it had been a month since I had been here. Life was just a wee bit too hectic to squeeze time for blogging into my day. But since today is the day of resolutions I will resolve to blog more, even if just a few lines of what’s going on in my writing life. For now I can say that much of December was spent working on revisions for Hugging the Rock. Several rapid go-rounds and the book was sent to the copy editor just before Christmas. We’re right on schedule. The publisher plans to print the first section of the book to hand out at ALA mid-winter in January.

Now I’m in that limboland of not really being committed to my next project. I know, I know, across the last few months I’ve thought I’ve known what I was doing next but Frankie and Max have gone mostly silent. I think, after wrestling most of the month with it, I’m going to work on the YA novel, VZ. There’s also a historical PB I want to do but I keep hearing my agent’s voice telling me to let go of PBs for a while and concentrate on the novels. Sigh.

I’ve been off two weeks for the Christmas shut-down and other than the revisions for Hugging the Rock and some clean-up in my office, I haven’t done anything writing wise and it makes me crazy. My friends remind me that this is my process, that I finish a book and then go through the “oh my gosh I don’t know what to do know and I’ll never write again” phase. I think I’ll never be able to write another book. I don’t remember how to start. I don’t think my ideas are good enough. I hate this insecure side of me but I do recognize that it is something I go through at the end of every project. Sigh.

I’ve been wrestling with the plot of VZ, which is the novel that I’ve been working on for over 15 years. Maybe longer. I’m not at the writing things down phase but I did pull a bunch of my old versions and read through them all. I’ve decided to add a younger sister because the main character was entirely too introspective and I’m hoping I can get more into scenes with a sibling. And I hope she’ll help me mirror some of the book’s theme. And I might have a new opening to the book, one that’s more of a grabber. At least I’m thinking writing thoughts. Here’s hoping I can keep it up once I have to go back to work on Tuesday.

Happy New Year to my LJ friends everywhere.