You probably wonder if I’ve died, dropped off the face of the planet or gone undercover. Well, no. No witness protection for me either. I’ve simply been quite busy with my life (which is absolutely NO excuse for someone who calls himself a writer).

I’ve been busy, but not with anything particular. Mostly figuring out my situation for the near future. Time after time lately I’ve been reminded “simplicity is essential” and “focus on what matters,” also known as “focus on your writing.”

My dilemma is the research. Have you ever heard of the world building trap? It’s where you get caught up in creating the world of your story and so much of your time goes to building that you never really get around to actually writing the story. I swore I’d never let that happen to me.

What’s ironic is that I have to world build but can’t. I mean, technically and literally I can, but it’s killing everything. I’m terrible at world building but my story absolutely requires great personal knowledge of the background of “my world” (i.e. world mythologies, religions, folklore, etc…) but simply learning all of that could take multiple lives and I only have one (which strangely I’m constantly reminded is far shorter than multiple lives).

So yes I’m alive and yes I’m working on writing but no I’ve not made worthwhile progress lately, and that’s the problem, but I’m refocusing on it because I can’t stand not writing almost as much as I can’t stand writing terribly.