Well, since it's been a good, long while since I've last written here, I thought I'd add a thought or two.
I'm at home alone quite a lot, and I feel I'm turning into a sort of recluse. Soon I'll grow that hump on my back like all bonafied hermits eventually do, and I'll start shading my eyes and making an ogrely grimace each time I emerge outside into sunlight. All kidding aside, I do feel at times trapped and blessed by my alone time--my writerly existence.
Recently, I wrote an article for a WNC magazine called Mountain Traditions, which will be included in their next issue. It's about the Kanuga Watercolor/Watermedia Workshops, held each year at the Kanuga Conference Center near Hendersonville. And truly was great fun to get out and be a reporter again for a couple of days.
There's not been any good news from my agent about my historical novel. Some days I wonder that this bird might never fly. But I'm at work on a second, and I've already written its final scene. Now I just have to ignore the voices in my head: the ones whispering of other ideas, other story lines and characters. They are seductive and dangerous, and I've been fighting them my entire writing life.
Since I've nothing else to say, I won't. But I'm feeling a little like William Faulkner today, whose one-liners always give me strength:
"My own experience has been that the tools I use for my trade are paper, tobacco, food and a little whiskey."
