Hit my first roadblock chapter yesterday.

Just couldn't figure out how to do it. Tried three different ways.

The holidays are always a difficult time to get any focus on writing. It's amazing that any writing gets done at all. From about mid-October, when my taxes are due, until January 2, there are more things to do and places to be. The store requires more attention, obviously.

Four years ago, I ignored everything; three years ago, I was still ignoring everything. Two years ago, it took more effort.

This year, I've backed off a little from my writing obsession.

But it is still there. It is completely amazing that I walked away from writing for 25 years. The compulsion is so strong that I feel strange if I'm not writing. It just goes to show how hard the store was, and how much work and attention I had to spend on it.

But I doubt anything could happen now to stop me. (Knock wood.) This is my life now.

Anyway, woke up this morning having decided that the way to write the problem chapter was simply in sequence of events, rather than jumping around. Simple solution. I liked the dark beginning of the chapter, then the flashback, but then there was another flashback and that was one too many. I won't try to write today, and I plan on working part of the day at the store tomorrow, but then I hopefully have a few weeks to finish the book.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to turn it into a book. Not sure if I'll try to send a shorter version to Amazon Singles. I may, because it would be a one and done. Even if it got accepted, unlikely, it wouldn't contractually obligate me like an agent or mainstream publisher would.

I've mulled the possibility of submitting to agents and mainstream publishers for four years now, but have made little movement in that direction.

I was thinking yesterday that when I write a book, it's a Platonic ideal. The book tells me what it wants to be, and the closer I get to the vision of the book, the more successful it is.

That is, successful in my eyes.

It may not meet anyone else's standards at all. At first, I was writing horror novels because they seemed open enough and broad enough in scope to handle whatever ideas I had.

But my last two books were thrillers (Snaked is a creature book, but written as a thriller.) Lucifer's Forge is definitely a thriller. My current book is a straight out fantasy.

In other words, I want to write what I want to write when I want to write it.

All that argues against tying myself down with an agent or publisher. So far, I've only slightly pushed on the publisher's doors, and I've been opportunistic about my chances. I look at the monolith of the publishers and think, "No way."

So...unless some opportunity comes along, I think I'm better off writing away happily at what I want to write and then just plunking them out into the world.