Five months?

I can't believe it. I could have sworn that I posted something in the last five months.

Actually, now that I think about it, I 'm pretty sure I did. But I was having technical difficulties, and the posting never "took." The story of my life.

Working on a new game plan: writing a detailed outline of the novel. One of the big challenges I've had is trying to figure out how all the different pieces tie in and how to move the plot forward.

Signed up for a novel-writing workshop last fall and this spring. I started off well, with a 10,000-word submission. (So the first 8,000 words were already written . . . ) My instructor tactfully pointed out that nothing actually happened in that first 10,000 words.

Sadly, I had reached the same conclusion. I was 10% into the novel, and my romantic lead hadn't yet entered the picture. Not good. I don't have either the time or the patience to write something on the order of "In Search of Lost Time."

But perhaps if I sold everything I own and relocated to France . . .

Back to reality.

That's the problem. Reality inevitably rears its ugly head. We never have those gorgeous swaths of time we wish for.

In the first half of this year, I've bought a home in New Jersey, sold my home in Manhattan, retrieved remnants of my former life in Tennessee, and continued to create a business out of whole cloth. The only life changes I haven't undergone are marriage and pregnancy (and I don't even have the energy to contemplate either in the next century or so . . . ).

But I did squeeze in 30 minutes to work on character sketches today. I've fleshed out two more of these very real people who are inhabiting my brain, waiting to appear on the page. And I've learned something key about each one of them.

As much as I'd like to zip through this process, I'm learning that I have to exercise patience with myself, cut myself some slack. It's all a discovery. One that requires seizing moments here and there to peek into the souls of our characters.

No matter what else happens today, it was a success in terms of advancing my novel.

Not bad for 11:00 a.m.