A Newbie Just a Bit Longer

I don't know about you, but I find it tough to get going after a nice long vacation. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at a Secret Undisclosed Location with just the four of us, far from family and friends. (That's me on the roof of the SUL on Thanksgiving afternoon.) We're home now and suffering from a Verizon Horriblus Network Virus that is making online life hell, so no Origins tales today. I'll be back on track soon.

The hardworking, soon-to-be debut novelist, Scott William Carter, has been doing all the heavy lifting for me of late. He interviewed me for his blog, The First Book, and has it up today. I hope you'll jump over and check it out. You can meet other folks, too, like my friends Will Lavender and Leighton Gage and Jennie Bentley.(And Scott has promised me he'll do a piece at the Handbasket when his novel comes out--you know what a soft spot I have for debuters.)

Come the end of this month, I'll no longer be a debut novelist myself, and I confess that it feels a little weird. I'll be in that sophomore novel land, that uncertain place where critics and readers will be judging whether I can do it again, or better, or bigger, or whatever. I'm hard at work on number three, planning number four, and so it goes on. But for now I'll savor being a newbie just a while longer. It's a comfortable, now-familiar place to be and I don't mind waiting so much.

Coming up: The Night Stalker, The Brady Bunch/The Partridge Family and, oh, yes--sweet treats and surprises!