My kids have gotten in the bad habit of waking up super early in the mornings, thus my morning writing time has become very short. Which has been a struggle, not going to lie.

I’ve been struggling with this book on my writing list that I need to get done. I’ve honestly avoided it for months. I had originally planned on writing it in November, then December, then first thing January, and now we’re to the end of January and I just started it.

This piece. … It’s a tough one emotionally. This is for my FBI series, and the title of the book is Race War, so you can probably imagine what it involves. Bombers on a vendetta against one particular race, in this case, Somali Muslims. Diving face first into the world of racism, extremism, violence, why someone would do this, how they could come to the conclusion it was needed, is draining to put it in the slightest.

But I also feel, given the current climate of the US, that it is very much a necessary topic to explore. Because I think a lot of people like me (aka those who would be reading this book) don’t understand that viewpoint, they don’t understand why someone would go to those levels.

My story is in no way glorifying it. It’s an FBI mystery, procedural, so you know–of course–the bad guy gets caught in the end, but goodness, it makes writing this piece tough. Especially because I do “bad guy” POV, and I’ve essentially required myself to get into the headspace of someone who would be willing to bomb and kill someone.

On a happier note…the book is going. I’m writing chapter 7 today. I’m only one day before where I had originally planned to be, and hope to make it up this weekend sometime.

I did get edits back for my August release titled Love Burns, so I did those last week, which was not part of my original goal list since I didn’t know when I’d be getting them back, so some of my edit stuff might be switched around, so I’m going to change some of those based on what’s happening with send-backs from publishers.

I found a new online digital calendar that I think I can officially say I like. It’s got it’s issues, but thus far, it allows me to do the major thing I need, which is move chapters around on different days to shift when I get things done/don’t get things done.

Round 1 Goals

1. EDIT – Lawyer Piece
2. EDIT – Stone’s Mistake (Agent Morgan Stone #1) – Waiting on edits back
3. EDIT – Young & Old (Missing Persons #3) – Printed & kind of started but not really
4. WRITE – Race War (Agent Morgan Stone #2) – IN PROGRESS
5. WRITE – Beware (Quarter Life #4)
6. WRITE – Alone & Lonely (Missing Persons #4)
7. MARKET – Stone’s Mistake (Agent Morgan Stone #1) – IN PROGRESS/ONGOING
   1. Doing some live readings on my own Facebook page
   2. Did an official cover reveal
   3. ARC is up on BookSprout and Netgalley
   4. Doing live readings for various groups
   5. NEED – Blog Tour for release
   6. NEED – Figure out what type of launch party I’m doing
   7. NEED – Find more promo opportunities
8. MARKET – Release (Quarter Life #3)

COMPLETED GOALS

1. WRITE – Country Style
2. EDIT – Love Burns