Back, Sort of

Losing a mother is hard. It doesn't matter how old she is or what intellectual arguments one can muster about circles of life and all that. The plain, raw truth is that it simply wallops you emotionally.

I've finally started back to work on Where Shadows Dance. I've had to ask for a month's extension, but my editor has been very understanding. This past weekend, Steve and I drove up to the lake. We hadn't been there since before Christmas, and it was heaven.

Those endless hours and weeks of sitting at my mother's bedside gave me much time to think. There's nothing like spending day after day in a hospice watching people die, one after the other, to cause even the most goal-obsessed amongst us to reevaluate their priorities. Last 31 December, I found myself oddly ambivalent about the beginning of this new year. Now, I'm ready to make some changes.

My thanks to Sphinx Ink, Emily and Bruce, Skittles, Steve Malley, Susan, Jan, Kim, Melinda, Lainey, Kierra, Vicki, Orannia, pax deux, Charles, Kalliope, Holly, Natalie, Caluch, Lana, Pam, and everyone else for their kind words of sympathy. You helped more than you'll know.