How many hours a day do you spend writing? Do you have a place where you go to write? An office, a table, a chair with your computer in your lap? I have an office, a desk and a chair. The guest room is my "office" except when guests show up. If we have guests, I move upstairs to a fold-out table and a chair. For close to two months now, I've been in my office working at a card table and a chair. That's because everything that was upstairs in our bedroom has now been moved to the loft area. The desk is still in my downstairs office, but there's not enough room for the chair now that the couch is folded out with three mattresses atop it. (We had to take a smaller mattress from our son's bed in order to fit our mattress onto the couch.) This is not where I'm used to working, but I'm getting work done on my next book. Why am I working in the guest room? Late one night, the roof of our house was mostly blown off and rain poured in, seeped into the carp...

Photo by Civinod , via Flickr Hello. Look at the date. Yes, It’s July. Half the year is gone. What have you done with it? How have you spent those 182 days? That’s right. 182 days. There’s a common simile among writers comparing writing a book to gestating and birthing a baby. A normal pregnancy lasts around 266 days. Think on that for a moment. I’ll wait. Now...breathe. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) I’m sure many of you reading this post have been ruthlessly efficient. You may have piles (or files) (or piles of files) - look at that, I channelled Dr. Seuss for a moment - the point is you’ve worked. You’ve accomplished great things. You’ve met your deadlines. For those of you to whom the foregoing applies, please accept my heartiest congratulations, my admiration, and a slight wish for you to soak your head. But...there may be some souls reading this post who don’t have piles (or files) (or piles of files) of completed work. These are the souls I’m writing to now. ...