Now that summer is over, two of my three kiddos are in school, and a schedule can once again reign supreme, it’s time to get serious about book number two. There is something odd about writing another book when the first is hanging out there in limbo, waiting to be snatched up–especially since this is a sequel. But I want to write right now and I want to write this, the next part of Desiree’s story.

I don’t always want to write. Sometimes I absolutely do not want to write. I know many authors will be shocked to hear this. At a conference earlier this year, I ran into a lot of long-time authors who kept saying they wrote because they couldn’t not write. Couldn’t live without it. Then they said (and this was the poison-tipped arrow) “If you don’t love it you’ll never make it.”

For a while that really hurt and made me doubt. But since then I’ve found other authors who feel like me: You can live without writing. I live without doing a lot of things I love. I don’t play basketball anymore (a sport I love). I don’t ride horses much (it’s been months). I’ve even gone weeks without chocolate (believe it).

You don’t have to be drawn to the computer every day. You don’t need to ‘have to’ do it. You need to want to–to want it enough that you write even when it’s hard and that you go back to it again and again. Because you want to. Writing is a choice I make, not something I’m helplessly drawn to.

And you know what? I kinda like it that way.