What can I say?

I'm a fan!

I Write to Survive

Time moves slowly in the publishing world, but not in the real world. At least, not in mine.

This was supposed to be a year devoted to full-time writing. But, as everyone knows, when you make definite plans, the universe delights in upstaging them.

The first six months of this year have been sad and stressful. My mother has dementia. If you've been fortunate enough to not face this in your own families, you can't have any idea how all-encompassing this disease is, how it taunts you, and mocks you, and ravages a family from the inside out. There are still good days. But it often seems that those good days are when the disease is at its cruelest because they offer a fragile glimmer of hope -- only to snatch it away again, and again, and again.

There is no recovery from dementia. The best you can do is cherish the good days, and survive the bad. And do a lot of hugging: it's the best way to connect when words are no longer viable.

And speaking of words...the writing has been going slowly as I try to write in (and around, and over, and under, and through) the almost daily depression I've felt.

Somehow, the words *do* come. My middle grade novel is progressing, there are a couple of picture books that show promise. Even though I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have liked at the six-month mark, I carry on.

I'm putting the words I can't say to my mother into my writing.

I'm a writer. It's the only way I know to survive.