Stress is an amazing thing. You — or, at least, I, since I don’t really know what anyone else feels — don’t always feel it. Then sometimes it’s all you feel. It works its way into everything you do and affects things that you might not think it would or should. It becomes your outlook and it’s hard to see past it.

For those of you who think I might be going a bit slow on the writing lately — like the past four or so years — blame it on stress. At least, I am so you might as well join me. Life wasn’t what I needed it to be and it became harder and harder to put my characters through crap when I couldn’t get myself out of my own. Because I’m that kind of author. I want to get my characters out of trouble. It’s actually kind of hard for me to get them into trouble. Just ask my critique partners. I know it’s necessary, but that doesn’t make it my favorite thing to do. So with personal stuff weighing me down, it became harder and harder to work out how a story should go. Thus, I’ve only managed a book a year for the last four or so years. Yes, I know, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Some authors don’t do that. I get that and I respect that. But I had a year back when when I produced seven books and a few others where there were at least four or five. That’s what I was used to and that’s how I wanted it to go. I know the market has changed, I know e-publishing has changed, I know a lot has changed and those are also contributing factors to my lessening production, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Which, in itself, is stressful. I want to produce more but haven’t been able to manage it.

Okay, enough of that. Not trying to excuse myself, just trying to get some thoughts out. And this post is here because I think — I hope, I pray to any deity that’ll listen — that I might have hit a turning point. This weekend, we — the SO and I — did something that eased the pressure of one of my major stresses. Not gone, but certainly much less. The day after we did that, I wrote nearly 3000 words. That, my friends, is an achievement, especially when I haven’t been able to make myself even sit down at a keyboard consistently for months. And here I am today, writing a post for the website that I have woefully neglected. Well, yes, it’s a 4 day weekend. That helps. But I did it. I’m doing it.

This is progress!!

I don’t know if the words I’ve written this weekend will stick. I don’t know if Luc and Reese — yep, it’s their turn in the Rose Family Chronicles — will throw me for another loop. They probably will. But I’ve made progress and that’s the key. I feel good.

And I wanted to share that.

Wish me luck!