Fly By Update

I have been away far too long.

This is a good thing. Trust me. It is.

School started for me, which means far less free time, but that's not really my excuse for why I haven't been posting. Here's the real reason:

I have been absolutely consumed by the book I'm writing. The past month is just a blur to me. I've been buried deep in a fictional world, in some sort of writing coma, with only a few hours of irritating real life sprinkled in here and there.

Here's the long and short of it: I am not working on the third novel in my Compass Rose series. Even though I know how the series is going to end, I'm not in a good place to write it yet. There's a lot of factors involved in that, but suffice it to say that the subject matter of the Compass Rose series is heavy (hello there, understatement) and with the books connecting to my spirituality so deeply, it's very taxing emotionally. That, combined with the anxiety of hearing back from agents about my manuscript...not conducive to writing the third in the series.

But that's not the whole story. There was a character who had sort of knocked on the door of my imagination, walked right in and made himself at home on the couch, and waited patiently for me to get my act together. He was only a pretty face and a writing prompt for the longest time, but somewhere along the way, I realized he had a very important story to tell. And when he started talking, he didn't stop. He told me everything. He told me the whole story like it was a secret weighing so heavily on him that he couldn't stand it anymore, and he needed to unload it and have someone help him carry it.

Once I had Nic's story, the other characters fell into place. I've written thousands of pages of fiction and I've never had a character and plot come to me so completely before.

It's a young adult novel, which makes me sort of feel like this is a first novel all over again. I'm used to a completely different audience. But the writing is absolutely flowing, fast and smooth.

And you know what? I feel completely at home in this genre. I may have found my purpose as a writer. Lofty, yes, I know. And I certainly am not saying that that my heart wasn't in TRUE NORTH and FROM EAST TO WEST. Anyone who knows me knows that those books are my philosophies in fictional form. But this is where I need to be right now. It's what I need to do before I finish the Compass Rose series, it's the characters I'm in love with, it's the story I've been longing to tell all along.

REFUGE is the story of how Nic fell in love for the first time, and how he learned that fear is the biggest enemy of love. And I truly think everyone can learn something from his tale.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Nic's insisting I get on with copying down his story. Writing coma, here I come.