For the record, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

It only appears that way.

You’re probably sick of reading a post in which I say I’m getting back to blogging on a regular basis, and then proceed to, well, blog on an irregular basis. I don’t blame you. I’m getting tired of writing such posts. And I sure am darn sick of not blogging.

When I sat down to type this, I looked at the date of my last post and shuddered. Could it really be more than two weeks?

TWO WEEKS?

Yowza.

In the little world between my ears, I was thinking it had only been a few days. Six, maybe seven at most.

Nothing like the date stamp of a post to bring you back to reality and the stark truth I’ve failed miserably at keeping my ‘I will blog regularly’ promise. Mea culpa.

Because I really enjoy blogging. No, make that: I really love blogging. And when I don’t blog, I miss it.

Now I know some bloggers do so more for attention, publicity, designing their platform, building their ‘brand’. Good for them, more power to ’em. Or they blog to entertain, inform, educate, motivate, persuade or inspire. I aim for at least one of the aforementioned, two on a good day.

But in the end, I blog because I like the connection that takes place when fingers hit keyboard, words come out on the page, and are read. The act of writing is sufficient reward, and that last part – ‘and are read’ – is just icing on the cake.

I like being part of a global online community of fellow bloggers, each of us writing what flows through us. None of us can possibly keep up with reading every single post we collectively put out there, but it sure is nice to touch base and know what’s going on, what’s taking up their time and what they find interesting.

I love knowing what others find blog-worthy, and seeing what they’ve done with their words.

So while I may not have been blogging, I have been thinking about blogging quite a bit. I’ve captured a number of notes on topics I’d like to share, questions I have, things I’m not sure of.

It was six weeks ago, in Back in the Saddle Again, that I was sure my book would be published at the end of April. However well meaning those thoughts were, the universe scoffed at them – Ha! For reasons too numerous to mention, many of my own making, this behemoth of a book is taking a little (okay a lot) longer than I’d hoped.

The editing and cross-checking are complicated, as Saint Jane* and I follow up on loose ends in the manuscript and try not to forget anything. Life’s thrown in a few curve balls as well, and things get interrupted here and there.

But we now have a solid, no kidding, drop dead date  to throw the sucker over the transom and into the lap of Lisa of Lemonberry.com to have her way with it. Wednesday. She’s already done a draft mock-up of the first 50 pages, allowing us to embrace the myriad details of what the words will actually look like on the page. We’ve tweaked it a teensy bit, moved this here and that there, and have agreed on the way forward.

We’re finishing up the last parts, filling in the cracks, polishing it up.

I don’t have a publication date as that’s heavily dependent on Lisa’s workload and schedule. But it’s looking like very late May or early June.

In the meantime, you’ll find me tap tap tapping away, setting things right and getting it done. And blogging. Because I’ve got a lot of connecting to do.

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*One of the upcoming posts will be why every author needs an experienced book editor.