I can’t figure out what to write about today. I’m told consistency is important, so I try to put out something I consider at least not a complete embarrassment every Wednesday and Saturday.

I can’t stand some newsletters and blogs I see that are essentially ‘buy my book.’

I get genuinely happy when one of you buys or reads one of my books, but what I enjoy most is the feedback I get from you about whatever it is I write. The emails I get from you are humbling. The thought that something I posted sparked the stories sent back to me is inspiring.How my words are interpreted or sometimes misinterpreted into something I didn’t even imagine. A reader left a review a while back. She said she had little money to spend on books. Her income was quite limited. But she bought one of mine, read it and thanked me with a review on Amazon. I hope Bonnie knows how much that touched me. At its core, writing is about communication and connection, right? This connection with a total stranger is really what it’s all about for me.

My editor, Mark, suggested this morning I write about not knowing what to write about. The dude is a genius. As soon as he said that I sat down, and this happened. I doubt this blog will have anything notable in it, but it got me thinking about my process.

I’ve got about a thousand snippets of stuff in my notebook. It is either a mess or some roughhewn art waiting in the wings. My money is on it’s a mess.

Water Wars is the first book I’ve written in any kind of order. But progress on it has slowed. I think it’s slowed because this isn’t how I write. I’ve got two new characters I love, and I hope you all will too. They are strong-minded people from the Louisiana swamps. I love Louisiana and New Orleans and all that goes with it. It’s like no other place on earth I’ve ever seen. But these characters are still being developed, they are incomplete. I haven’t come to know them yet. Often I write stuff, especially characters and I really get to like them, then I scramble where to fit them into the story. The first book, The Third Step, has one such character in it. A reader asked me where he came from and my honest answer was, “I have no idea…”

One of these new characters, I called her Jackie. A woman who slipped between the cracks of this society and hit the bottom. She came back angry and hard, but I’m afraid she may be crazy. That’s ok, crazy makes a good character who is fun to write, and I hope fun to read. But right now, she just lives in my notebook with a gaggle of other ideas and unfinished stories.

I don’t like my writing methods. It’s scattered and chaotic, much like what’s going on in my head in any one day. I always imagined writing in an oak lined study, wearing one of those corduroy jackets with the patched sleeves. It ain’t like that. I’m writing this in my tool shed. My happy place.

A very good friend, a writer and journalist called me a ‘master of the cruel underbelly of life.’ I take that as a high honor. I never know if something I’ve written is any good, or in the words of Hemingway, “just shit…”

There is surely plenty to write about these days. I struggle a lot with sounding preachy. I never want to do that. If I ever do I apologize. It’s so hard for a thinking, open-minded person to form an opinion these days. Facts are commingled with hype and whatever media frenzy happens to be blowing up in the moment. I fear at times we are on the brink of a war that will forever change the world, then I hear some talking head saying it is no big deal. Sometimes I feel the constant influx of news, for lack of a better term, gives me whiplash.

Regardless, there is plenty to write and think about and so many great characters to let come to the surface.

I guess, six-hundred or so words into this and Mark was right. I just wrote about not knowing what to write about.