I love writing. I love everything about it.

But it’s HARD!

It’s hard to find time. It’s hard to MAKE time. It’s hard to steal time.

But it’s even harder when I don’t write.

If you write too, you know exactly what I mean.

I learned some valuable lessons when I published Annie Spruce.

I learned that while writing is hard, publishing is even harder.

Editing (getting the baby ready to go home) was a sweaty, bloody, tearful process, and marketing (trying to show your baby to the whole world and then get them to vote for her in the cutest baby contest) is a nightmare.

IT.IS.HARD!

But my biological clock is ticking and it’s time to do it again.

I fashioned this stand-up work station. ((one thing I didn’t know is that when you write a book, your rear end will take on the size and shape of your office chair if you don’t STAND UP now and then)).

And then I did something that required me to steel myself and muster up all the guts and fortitude I have within me:

I did online research on the techno pages and I learned the terms and I learned the specs and I found myself the perfect laptop.

It is not within my cellular structure to visit such pages. My husband is the purchaser/researcher of all things techno in our house, but just like it wasn’t in me to move the chest freezer full of food across the laundry room floor when I was nine months pregnant just because it needed done, I muscled it like a boss and decided what I wanted and I brought my new friend home.

I love her already.

I tap out these words on her keys so pretty and dainty and it’s like my fingers were meant to live on them.

Cheesy right?

I’ll tell you a secret.

I’ve decided I’m not even going to give my children the password. Only my husband and I will know the hidden code that opens up all of Betty’s (that’s what I named her) digital beauty. I searched her out to help walk me through writing the next book, and I’m afraid if I let the kids use her too, she’ll meld with the electronics of the household and before I know it, she’ll be loaded up with Solitaire and history games and YouTube clips of farm animal showmanship.

Betty’s not going to be like the prized fur coat thrown into the winter tote of mud boots and stained-up Columbias and 4-H hoodies.

I sought her out and brought her home and now it’s time for her and I to get to work.

She’s serving me…

and my hind end…

very well.

~

What are YOU working on these days? What special tools help you create? Would LOVE to hear about it, care to share?