There’s always something else to do besides writing a book. My current book is called Power Play (formerly Silken Threads) and it’s the first in my series called The Black Stockings Society. Presently, it is crying from neglect. I want to give it attention and I glance at it every once in a while and may jot down a note or two, but never give it the full attention that it needs. But there have been so many other things happening that steal my attention.

There was the SORMAG conference last week (I was on four panels over four days). The Access Romance blog I had due this Monday, I have two newsletters to write both due this month, articles for a blog tour I hope to start this month, a conference call with my publicist, email to respond to, plus my nonproductive habit of visiting author websites.

Then just when I thought I could concentrate I saw a baby deer in the backyard and for an hour wondered where its mother was. Fortunately, the mother appeared and I wondered how long they would stay. They decided to stay all day. They ate leaves then curled up and slept under the trees. Finally I could focus I sat down to write a few pages until a woodpecker, mistaking our house for a tree, began knocking and I had to shoo it away. It kept coming back.

Now both the deer and the woodpecker are gone and I’m successfully checking things off my ‘To Do’ list. Next week in big letters on my list I will write Work on Power Play. And I will. I won’t let anything distract me. No matter what happens I will write…except I think I just saw an ugly turkey vulture land on my neighbor’s roof…