As Margaret Atwood once said: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” Believe me, I’m not waiting for perfection. I’m waiting for that magic to happen, but so far it’s been a slow year. It’s just been me and the blinking cursor and it must be wet because I’m not even getting a spark.

Gone are the days where I put up a new calendar and open it to January and say, “Yay! It’s a new year and I’m going to write every day!”  Thinking back, most of my books started later in the year. I guess I had to come down from the holidays and get my bearings, settle into the new time and place and find my space in it.

I have a story in my head and it wants to be told. Like any writer, I’m just struggling. It’s been two years since I wrote anything. I spent most of last year complaining about having lost my mojo. I really did think I’d never write again. I was ready to tackle this year and get it back. I thought I did have it back. But as I said in Part 5, I was taking time to discover. But even the research hasn’t been holding my attention. So again, I question whether or not this is the story that needs to be told right now. And maybe it isn’t.

Here’s another good excuse… Spring is trade show season for me at work and I have two big shows coming up, so that has taken up a lot of time and energy at work. It’s practically all I can think about. As I often like to say, my life often feels like I’m sitting alone in a giant waiting room, waiting for whatever grand (or not so grand) event comes next.

It could be a birthday, a trip, the next payday, but whatever it is, there’s a line of them outside the door waiting to get in to greet me.  Writing a book is like having a freshly charged iPad in hand while I’m waiting in that waiting room. But right now, I’m in that waiting room with a dead battery and no charger.

I’m going to keep trying though. The biggest of my trips will be over this month. But it could be the weather too. Another excuse! Maybe I should wait until Spring.  Nope, can’t do that.  I’ll be wanting to go outside and play in the dirt and watch things grow. I definitely won’t have time to write then.  Guess we’ll wait and see what happens.

Coming soon I have two more awesome guest posts from fellow authors who both sort of discuss this “stuck” feeling. It’s been several years since one them published her first book and she talks about all those “excuses” life gave her for why she hasn’t finished her second book. The other blogs about how you just have to make yourself beat those excuses and just sit down and do it.

So, I have no excuses and I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I need to write. I can write. I just need to make myself do it.