How can they all go take a nap at the same time? It’s so unfair. I’m alone now. I know they will wake up eventually. Probably they are waiting until they have my undivided attention.
It’s true I’ve been distracted for the past few weeks. Traveling gets in the way of writing. I wonder from time to time if dictating into a device while I’m driving would be an option. I can just imagine. “Now we’re all going off this cliff together. Ahhhhhh!”
The final few chapters of this final book in the trilogy have turned into a pointless mush. I need to bring this story to a close. I’d like to put a big red bow on it, but at this point, I’d settle for packing tape. This project has dragged on way too long.
Some authors crank out several books per year!
Then I am reminded of other authors who take years to write one book. Of course, their books are literary masterpieces, destined to be on the bestseller lists for the next fifty years.
That isn’t me. That won’t be me. Cozy fantasies don’t tend to be literary masterpieces. I’m not saying they couldn’t be, but I am sure mine won’t be. Ninety-nine percent certain. I confess, I hold out hope. It’s hard to exorcise magical thinking from my fizzling brain, especially when one of my recurring characters is magic itself. But, even on a good day, I lean toward self-delusion.
When I began this trilogy, I had no idea how magic would manifest. Before I knew what was happening, a character got poked with a pin during a fitting and turned into a bat. That was a surprise to me. Why did she turn into a bat? I mean, I poked many clients with pins during my heyday as a fashion designer-slash-seamstress. As far as I can recall, no one turned into a bat, or anything else, other than a cranky person who would have given me a 2-star rating if Yelp had existed in the 1980s.
I don’t underestimate the power of magic.
How do I wake up these slackers, that’s what I want to know. I blame all the distractions in my life, but who doesn’t have distractions? Other writers keep on writing. I bet even the ones who are homeless somehow find a way to work daily at their craft. I could do that, too, if I stopped blaming my characters for not showing up for the job.