I have a friend who has a blog like this as she is working toward becoming a published author.  It inspired me to start one as well.  Thanks, Laura!

I have been writing for a few years now.  One night, about 4 years ago, I just had this thought pop into my head and I sat down at the computer with my headphones in, playing Queen's greatest hits and began typing.  Two years later I finished my first book, working title: "Queen of the Moon".  The first third is good enough to keep.  The rest is garbage.  I pushed myself to write something, but it went in a direction I didn't really care for, and I threw in certain things just for the convenience of finishing the story.  I pushed myself hard to finish something.  But it isn't what I want for those characters, whom I love, and who have haunted me ever since, hanging around my mind and reminding me that I never finished their story.  So I'm trying to get up the motivation to go back and revisit the story, chop and mutilate it, stitch it back together even better, and get moving with my life as a writer.

In the meantime, I have about 10 other "starts".  None of them have gone anywhere. I'm really good at beginning a story, but then I hit that wall where I don't know what to do next.  So I'm working on developing a story before writing it.  I have a very long outline of a story I'm calling "Hobnail and Hook".  So far, so good.  I have the opening scene (I think), and I have a pretty good understanding of what I want for the story.  I just have to sit down and get writing, I suppose... but first I kind of want to work on "Queen of the Moon" again...

What I really need is time.  I am really hoping that having the summer off will grant me what I need to make some real progress.  My sweet husband bought me a laptop for Christmas, which definitely helps.  I can take my stories with me everywhere we go this summer, as well as not having to compete with my children for the family computer.  I'm very excited about that.  I tend to be a much more prolific writer when the house is quiet, though, so summer might be interesting.  Maybe I'll just have to get up before the kids every day, or stay up late nights to write... we'll see.  Maybe next fall I won't have to go to work and I can stay home and work on my ambitions instead!

Another concern is how to organize my chapters, etc.  I've been using Word, but it isn't very easy to flip back and forth and find things and edit in Word.  I've broken up my book in sections-- I have three or so chapters saved in each file.  There HAS to be a better way, though.  I don't want to spend a bunch of money for writing software, but I may just have to...