Catching Up

It's been a while since I've written a personal blog post, but things have been sort of weird lately. Having finished and submitted my novel, I feel like I'm in a lull, a down-time. You might say my writing field is set aside as fallow.

I tried to join Tristi Pinkston's Book in a Month for July, but I can't force myself to write, so I bowed out. I guess I need to be still, do some long-put-off reading, and prepare for the next phase, when it comes.

Someone suggested a while ago that I join a new website called Storycasting.com as an author and create my ideal acting casts, if movies were to be made from each of my novels. I recently joined, and have been searching ever since for the box of file cards that have pictures on them that helped me create such physical descriptions as I put in my books.

Of course, I can't find the file box anywhere, although I know it lives in this house and not in a storage unit. I've shared it with an author's group here, so I know it lives with me. It's just gone into hiding, I suppose.

I did find a list of ideas for more books in my Owen Family series. I was amused to note that one idea had a check mark beside it. That idea became Ride to Raton!

Go join Storycasting.com (it's a free site!) and have fun telling me how you see my characters.

Totally off the subject, I saw a really awesome movie on the Fourth of July, Emma Smith: My Story. In my small town of about 12,000 people (actually, I live out of town, but go in for shopping, etc.), there is a small six-screen theatre. The owners are members of the LDS Church. Their family arranged to have four free showings of the movie on their tab as a gift to the LDS community: two on Friday, and two on Saturday. I went with a girlfriend, and although we couldn't sit together, we got in and both enjoyed the movie. Then we went to lunch.

I had a nice time, talking with her about liberty, and the War of 1812, and her visit to Fort McKinley, and the circumstances that led to Francis Scott Key's writing what became our National Anthem.

It was a good day.