I am a creature of routines. Because of our different work schedules I usually go to bed several hours before my husband does. When I’m ready to head upstairs he usually heads to his office. Lately I’ve been pausing in his office first. I sit on the floor, petting the dog who does not want to be touched and ask my husband questions about my WIP.  Five or ten minutes of conversation and then I go upstairs. Just before I turn out the light I grab my steno pad and jot down a few ideas. And then, before I know it, there is a scene. And as we know, a scene after a scene after ascene makes a book.

With the work-for-hire project my WIP has been short-changed of late. But that doesn’t mean I am not working on it.  Sometimes it seems the less time I have for a project the more my brain goes into overtime trying to solve the story questions.  A lot of my pondering is done in the shower or on the drive back and forth to the day job. When I come home from work and empty my pockets I am liable to find scraps of paper with ideas of things to research or a couple of lines of something that just popped into my head. I can be driving and unable to write anything down and I get a great idea (or what seems like one at the time) and I will make up a song using the line and sing it to myself until I can pull over and write it down.

I used to tell people that I squeezed writing into the holes in my life whenever I could. Like it was something to be forced.

I realize that’s the wrong way of looking at it.

I don’t have to force myself into the words. The words are always there, sliding out when I least expect it, just waiting for me to catch them and put them back where they belong. In a story.