I’ve never thought of writing as a lonely profession, but I do consider it a profession filled with challenges and distractions.

I love reading all types of books, both fiction and nonfiction—thrillers, murder mysteries, romances with a good story line, histories, adventures, travel and biographies.  Thanks to other online writing buddies, I now include some sci-fi and paranormal romances.  I’ve never thought about what writing genres I favour because if the story-line grabs you by the eyeballs and holds your attention to the last satisfying page, who cares what genre it was.  The only thing that matters was a darn good story that kept you glued to the pages.

I keep trying to write some kick-ass thriller but somehow my hero/heroine is a “foodie” with an attitude.  Martial art moves may connect purely by  accident.  And my vision of Uzis, Berettas, sniper-scopes, missiles and fast cars are replaced by a paring knife and  fork as the weapons of mass destruction.  What is it with my keyboard?  I want to create mayhem, violence, lots of blood and gore, but what ends up on my screen is warm and fuzzy.  Sigh, that’s one of my challenges or maybe, that’s my calling. . .

Distractions are plentiful.  After immersing myself in my character’s dilemma and plunging him/her into more trouble, it seems Nature calls. I’m not referring to bathroom breaks, but the need for food and the great outdoors beckons—especially if it’s great walking weather.  To further distract me from my keyboard, there’s family demands, house and garden stuff as well as email and checking out my other bloggers.

There’s people to see, places to go and there’s research—there’s always research.  I love research, the delving into all sorts of information treasures.  It’s pure gold when the info path leads you down numerous roads, plunging you into fascinating areas of new information that should probably be in another book or future story. Historical research material with carefully bundled correspondence are especially distracting.  Most times these beautifully hand-written letters to family and friends often gives a glimpse of daily lives recorded from a past era.  Other times, it requires a great deal of squinting and guessing to decipher someone’s penmanship—was it a personal message or a business one?

See, distractions, the bane of a writer’s existence as well as another challenge—the challenge of finding more time to do some serious writing. . . .