and that was why there’s not been an update on this site, but that’d be a lie too big for even a pseudonymic fiction writer.  It’s been a combination of Real Life interference/distractions and waiting for others to get things to me (my husband took several months to get me the write-up of his reactions/suggestions to his 1st read-through of the 1st draft of my 1st novel – he got them to me in early January and I’ve not touched that piece again yet *sigh*). I’ve also gotten entangled in various debates about several important matters (well, important to ME at least) that have eaten into my very limited time that I’m not doing some kind of parental thing or other family-life-necessity task or doing something rediculous like trying to get more than 90 minutes of sleep at a stretch (I have bad insomnia, struggle with chronic pain that wakes me, and to top it off my youngest child – a toddler – has decided to sleep like a newborn for weeks at a stretch off & on this winter, often waking up fussing loud enough to wake other household members who have to be more coherently focused human beings in the morning hours than I unless I sooth him back to sleep. Even if I was of the mindset to do so, “cry it out” isn’t an option in our living situation, due to how many others are impacted by the noise).

Part of the hold-up with writing is my fear of completely screwing up linear time in my novels. I’m not a very linear person to begin with; I’ve said for years that I visualize time more like a Slinky than a ruler. When I’m writing, I tend to wander around the chronology quite a bit, and I currently am devising scenes for at least 4 novels that span several hundred years but are linked together by common threads (or loops on the Slinky that touch intermittently before stretching apart again as it stumbles down the stairs – I have children, so any Slinky of mine is likely to have some let’s-not-think-about-what-that-stuff-is-too-much goo on it that stretches like pizza cheese as the loops expand after coming in contact). I’ve decided to try creating a software timeline (because trying to do it on note cards just results in the toddler scattering them or scribbling on them or an older kid absconding with them thinking that they’re out for homework use). I then spent way too much time trying to decide which software option to experiment with, but tonight I settled upon Preciden.com for a first stab. It was a close call between that and Timeglider.com (I wanted a cloud-based one since I often switch computers multiple times throughout the day, so I didn’t want it only on my aging laptop or the family room computer… haven’t tested yet to see if it’ll work on my Android tablet, all the mobile app options I was seeing were iOS and I’m way too klutzy to spend that much on a device to carry around with me).

So… hopefully I can get some progress going. I’ve grounded myself from social media other than Twitter and blogging until I get at least a new full chapter written for one of these projects, but even though that resulted in my being completely unaware that Cleveland had it’s first-ever ComicCon until it was already underway (and out of the bounds of our family budget), it still hasn’t managed to light a fire of productivity under my buttocks. I’ll blame the fact that the area is set to break the record for coldest February just slightly on that (my older kids keep having days off school due to wind chills making frost bite a risk with more than a few minutes of outdoor exposure, which is completely wrecking my routines). Before it got too cold, I was making pretty good progress by parking in a parking lot and setting up my “mobile office” to write in the car for an hour or so after dropping the kids off at school, but it’s not been warm enough to stay in the turned-off car for more than 10 minutes for a LONG time now. I’m starting to get twitchy.

well… yeah. I lose track of time easily. Been a bit busy. I have more kids than I did when I started this site, plus a shiney graduate degree, plus been doing a lot of volunteering and community building work. Haven’t had a lot of time for blogging but I have been working on the novels around all that (I call it “productive use of insomnia – I’m writing this after 1am). But when school starts all except one of the kids will be in school at least part-days so I plan to steal more fiction writing time more regularly. Persephone has been getting impatient with me and it doesn’t seem wise to annoy a/the Queen of the Underworld.  I’ve been home from the Tori Amos concert (where I actually got to meet her at the Meet & Greet in the afternoon) for about 2 hours now. I mentioned to Tori that some of her songs have strongly influenced my portrayal of Persephone and she seemed interested, so figured maybe updating the website would be a good use of the insomnia tonight. I had several scenes from the novel (some already written in 1st draft, some still in outline stages) playing through my head as she played at the concert tonight so I’m kinda itching to write, but for the sake of my physical health I should probably turn the screen off and stare at my bedroom ceiling instead. Good night dear readers, even if it’s lunchtime when you’re reading this.

If you’ve looked at my Twitter feed, you know that I’ve been working hard on this novel and am on target to hit my personally-set deadline of finishing it this month.  I’m not sure if anyone is actually reading this blog since I kinda intentionally don’t put much here to read, it’s more of a placeholder and now I’ve turned off comments because I’m tired of getting messages to moderate comments left by spammers (I haven’t seen any comments that were actually relevant to the post they were commenting on, a few were questionable but I erred on the side of efficiency as I’m way too busy to risk it).

I also haven’t been logging into FaceBook, trying to avoid extra distractions (the ones locally are enough!).  If you actually know me and are trying to contact me, try my other email address if you’re not getting a response.

Well, this has been nearly two hundred words written here instead of in the novel.  Going to go work on that again  now instead.

I’ve held this domain name for  a while but hadn’t gotten around to doing anything with it since I’ve been busy with other stuff (like motherhood and being sick and moving).  So I’m just now getting back to writing much and getting this site going for folks who want to follow me along on the journey (or who find my work later and want to know some of what went into creating it – I myself have been very inspired and empowered by reading about other writers’ processes, especially writers who are also mothers of small children – JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyers particularly – so if I can give back a little of what I’ve received, I’d like to do that).

At this point, the plot of my work in progress (my first novel) is pretty set in stone, only minor details really will likely change at all.  I’ve written a good portion of the beginning (though not sequentally – I write in scenes around the needs of my household, so on average I write about 800 words in a sitting and often don’t pick up in the same scene the next time I have a chance to write – I stitch the scenes together later, kinda scrapbook style).  I have an outline written out (need to go through and make it a little more simplified).  I have also written the most difficult scene of the book – the turning point of the story.  That was really emotionally rough on me, but I needed to do it to be sure I’m really honestly pointing things in that direction earlier in the book.  Now I’m writing backwards from there a bit, some stuff that happens in th middle of the novel, stuff that’s emotionally a little easier to write so that’s a relief.  I should have some spare time next week to write a bit more and I hope to (fingers crossed) double the amount of story that I have written so far (for those following along, the current not-totally-in-the-I-doubt-I’ll-use-this-bin word count stands at just under 9000 words – not including outlines and such… and also excluding a couple scenes I wrote but don’t think I’ll manage to work in).

Sofie