Well, I, uh ...

I'm out of excuses. I'm down to just one plain and simple excuse: I spend so much time in front of my home computer, now that I work from home, that the last thing I want to do at night is spend more time at my computer. So, I haven't been working on any of my personal writing projects. Every now and then I sit down and pull up one of my novels-in-progress, but it doesn't take long before I'm too tired to focus.

I've been reading a lot, however. A lot of young adult fiction, actually. I've been requesting books from the library rather than buying them. I'm reading "Beautiful Chaos," the third book in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's "Beautiful Creatures" series (YA) and next I'll read "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell (fiction), which will be a nice break from all of the addicting YA series I've been reading lately.

Otherwise, I've been working and planning for work travel, family visits and my son's sixth birthday. I've been busy, just not busy writing.

Work-Life Balance

I'm still trying to figure out an appropriate work-life balance for working at home. People ask me if I'm tempted to goof off or do housework, since I'm home all day, rather than work. Actually, I have the opposite problem: I don't know when to stop working.

I want to show my editors that they can rely on me to work pretty much unsupervised at home, which means I feel like I have to cram 10 hours into an eight-hour day to show how hard I'm working. Of course, there's also the fact that I'm still getting used to a new job, so work that I should be able to finish in eight hours is taking me 10 hours. Not every day, but a lot of days. More than I'd like.

I keep telling myself that eventually I'll get into a groove where I have a good understanding of the science involved in my news reporting. And I won't have to keep second-guessing what I'm putting into stories, because I'll have figured out what my editors are most interested in. Only time will tell.

So, my own just-for-fun, maybe-someday-to-be-published fiction writing has suffered. A lot. By the time I finish my work day, I'm not terribly interested in spending even more time in front of the computer. My poor butt is already flat enough. But what do I do instead? I sit on the couch and read. Excuses, excuses.

Big Ole Stack of Books 

I need one of those shock collars -- or maybe just some kind of alarm on my cell phone -- that goes off when I feel the temptation to buy another book, because I have a stack of books (and several requests pending at the library) that I haven't read, and that stack keeps getting taller and taller.

If I got a Nook, that might solve part of my problem (my two brand new bookshelves are totally full), but then I still don't have enough time to read all of the books I want to read (or write). It's my ongoing struggle.

That said, I've read a few good books lately. "The Gap Year" was pretty slow to start, but it got better in the end. I'm reading "Beautiful Darkness," the second book in Kami Garcia's and Margaret Stohl's "Beautiful Creatures" series. It's also been slow to start, but halfway in it's getting to the good stuff, just when I was thinking of giving up on it.

I've been on a witches/mystical creatures streak for a while, ever since I read "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness a few months or so ago. I just picked up "Torment," the second book in the "Fallen" series by Lauren Kate. I've been on the fence about reading the second book, but it was in paperback at Target, so I bought it today.

Two books along the witches/demons/angels/ghosts theme that I liked recently were "The Name of the Star" by Maureen Johnson and "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs. Both set in the UK, both with ghost-type mythologies, both intriguing and relatively quick reads.

How I wish I had the kind of imagination that could think up these kinds of story lines. Well, I do have a ghost story that I haven't worked on in a while ...

A Little Pat on the Back

I'm proud of myself. Tonight will be three nights in a row that I've worked on one of my books. Honestly, tonight I don't know how long I'll last, because I have a raging headache and I've spent most of the day sitting in front of my computer, but I'm going to attempt it.

I don't know why I'm always surprised, but when I jumped back in to my novel after several weeks away from it, I was pretty happy. I had that feeling of, "Wow, we've come a long way, baby," because the writing seemed so much more developed than when I started the project. Then again, I guess it should be in pretty good shape now that I've been working on it for a couple of years.

So, I guess I better get started for tonight ...

*Sigh*

Where has my motivation gone? I continue to be focused on my new job and not much else, aside from my husband and son.

Well, that's not true. I have been reading a lot.

*Sigh*

Maybe my motivation will return when I finish reading my current library book, "The Gap Year" by Sarah Bird. We'll see ...

Southern Inspiration

I just finished reading "Shine" by Lauren Myracle and now I'm inspired to work on a book I started writing a few years ago in which the central character is a similarly unfortunate young woman living in the South.

"Shine" is about a girl on a mission to find out who attacked her gay former best friend in a small Southern town where many people could be suspects in the hate crime. And, of course, she's dealing with her own past trauma and poor circumstances. As sad as the story sounds, it's not in the end. There is some hope that at least a few of the young people in this poor North Carolina town will rise above their economic disadvantages.

The novel is a good example of how well-written young adult books can be. I often find that in the young adult category the stories are really engrossing, despite writing that is only so-so. Instead, "Shine" paints a vivid picture of the town, its people and their awful surroundings without being overly descriptive or unnecessarily mysterious. And as Cat continues her amateur investigation, turning up all kinds of things she didn't know about her friends and family, you find that you just can't seem to put the book down for fear that she will really get into trouble and you'll miss it.

And now, I must admit, I'm at a crossroads (as usual, I guess) in my own writing. Yet again, I want to pick up where I left off on an old project -- or start a new project -- when I should be finishing the two books I've written all the way to the end. I should incorporate feedback I've gotten on those novels and send them in to agents and editors who said I could solicit them (although I'm sure they forgot about me almost as soon as they gave me their business cards).

Instead, I'm thinking about giving up on my first novel altogether and focusing on my other books with more colorful characters and more interesting plots. So, unable to make up my mind, I'm once again paralyzed by indecision, so that I'm doing nothing rather moving any of my projects along.

Well, not nothing ... I am reading a lot ...

St. Patrick's Day Resolution

For my St. Patrick's Day resolution, since it's a few months past New Year's Day, I'm going to make an effort to write something every night that's not work-related.

The trouble with working from home is that you don't feel pressure to hurry up and leave the office so you can make it home at a reasonable hour, because you're already home. So then you -- at least in my case -- just keep right on working past 5, 5:30 or 6 p.m. ... or even later.

And then after you've spent 10 hours in front of your computer, like me, you don't want to spend anymore time sitting at your desk, even if you're writing something fun.

Needless to say, I'm still trying to figure out the right work-life balance for working from home. I hope I figure it out soon, because I don't feel all that balanced right now.