“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass” ~ Anton Chekhov

I have been writing, almost every day for about a month now. This has not happened in a long time, years in fact. I used to write every day when I was younger. I didn't stop because I got older, but just because life through some hard things at me and knocked me flat. I didn't loose my love for story telling, but sitting and writing became impossible. I put all my projects on hold and, more or less, took a couple years to fall to pieces.

I started to write again when Keelan, my Irish Highwayman, came whispering plots to me. (At first I had planned to give him one book, he has sense wrangled five out of me.) I think during one of the NaNoWriMo's I sat down and off and on scribbled half of his book, Entangled Worlds. (I say HIS book, but it isn't just his. He will tell you it is, but do not fall for his LIES. It is as much Liam and Morgan's book as it is his.)

My youngest adopted sister started to come to me for story aid for her own books around the same time. She wanted plot help, but none of the help I offered seemed to fix her plots. I couldn't figure out how to help, until my eldest adopted sister pointed out that if she just began to write she could get that first rough draft we all hate and begin to get an idea of where she wanted to head with the books.

Except youngest sister forgot to write. So we made a kind of pact. We would get online together once a day and write together. (We live in different cities, so we can't always get together in person even though our cities are close to each other.)

I had my doubts about this arrangement. I had not written consistently like that in five years, nearly six. But when youngest adopted sister needs bribery to write, it is the duty of older adopted sister to provide it. I think that is a rule written in the sibling law code. Section 100, paragraph 4.

It started where she could ask me for a scene she wanted from one of my books, she really likes my Haphazard series. I would write the scene, which would go into the newest draft, and send it to her after she had written as well and sent me hers.

That is how it started.

Things have escalated. (Side note, I had been working more on the Blade books before this. Not every day, but more than I had in a while. This is thanks to my youngest adopted sister who sat down and wrangled Stryker's real name out of him kicking and screaming. Once I had his real name, the plot began to click.)

I pulled open the moldy, dusty drafts of Haphazard that I had on my computer and cringed in pain at how rough and moldy they were. And I took what could be saved from them and began to write away.

Things started to happen. Plots came together. Characters developed. And, most shocking of all, I began to enjoy the writing time I spent with my idiots. (Yes, the whole Haphazard crew are basically idiots. Don't let them trick you into believing otherwise.)

I. Was. Having. Fun! Even more, I would write after our writing time. I wanted to keep going. I wanted to start early.

I was writing again!

I have not written every single day since this started, but I have only missed a day or two, which is not something I have done in far too long. I have opened up a new document for a newer draft of Haphazardly Implausible. I have made it through the first half of the final Blade book. (Note here, I have written a draft of the first four books, but never of the fifth and final.) I have worked on plotting out more of the Entangled Worlds books. AND I pulled out my typewriter the other night and tapped loudly away on another series set in the same world as the Blade books. This series was the first I wrote which takes place in the world, back before I knew there would be seven kingdoms and a series for each kingdom and that they would all connect in the end. It was an angst story I used to help me through issues, but I've always liked the plot even though it has changed through the years.

And there you have it! Jack has picked up her pen after five long years and is having a grand old time with it. (There have been chickens, cookies, and a not shocking amount of breaking things. One cannot write a book without breaking things. In the story. There have also been the return of daggers. Show me an author who does not hurl daggers at their characters' heads, and I will show you an author who is so sweet that said characters obey every little pen stroke from sheer desire to please. Note: Those are not my characters. Mine get the daggers thrown at their heads.)

That is all.

Good bye.