Blending Novel Writing with Real Life

Moving day is three weeks away and preparations continue steadily. We’ve met with a plumber and an electrician to fix a few things, and even made time for furniture shopping. Shopping’s not my favorite activity but, as exhausting as it was, we accomplished a lot in the 3-1/2 hour, two-store adventure in decision making.

These past few weeks have been a balancing act between moving tasks, family needs, and writing-related tasks. We’re celebrating Easter at my daughter’s house this weekend, and I’ll help with the cooking and child-minding, which will be great fun.

We’re also spending time with my sister who was diagnosed with grade one breast cancer last month and will have her procedure on April 13^th. From the hospital, we’ll be driving her to my daughter’s, so she can recover there. Having been through this before, albeit 29 years ago and under a more dire circumstance, she’s feeling positive. There’s nothing like a cancer diagnosis to put things into perspective, is there? To hold family close and keep doing the things you love.

For the sake of normalcy and to maintain a sense of calm, I’m still writing and promoting. Casey Holland mystery series, #4 The Deep End, is on sale for $.99 through BookFunnel’s Mayhem & Motives promotion. For mystery fans, this is a great opportunity to browse through over 160 mystery titles, which you can find HERE, or find on Amazon, Kobo, Apple, or Barnes & Noble.

The Deep End is drawn from my volunteer experience inside a youth detention center years ago. I met all kinds of residents, some serving a sentence, others awaiting trial. The youngest was twelve years old, the oldest seventeen, and included a boy who’d stabbed his mother over 40 times. I also met two members of a family of criminals. The older brother was in adult prison, while the two younger siblings were at the center where I worked. The girl, a fourteen-year-old, was in detention for attempting to push an elderly woman off a cliff.

I’ve come to realize that all the years of book plotting and strategizing have helped me organize this move better than anticipated. Planning well ahead and list-making are second nature to me. Have you found your creative life assisting you with real-life challenges?

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