At some point in every novel, it consumes me. I start living in my character’s heads and the world I’ve created for them. While I’m making coffee, I’m thinking about how to write a certain scene. When I’m taking a shower, I’m thinking about how my character would react if this or that happened.

Conversations with my husband go like this:

DH: Hey did you see that some of our little pine trees are going brown. They might even be dying.

Me: Nahuh.

DH: I think it might be a tree disease. Maybe we should call in a specialist.

Me: Nahuh.

DH: And then aliens landed in the front yard, took off their pants and did a dance!

Me: Nahah.

I start dazing into space and wandering around the house putting the milk in the cabinet and the coffee in the fridge. I go to bed with sheafs of paper and my (special) ball point pen. In the morning I find I fell asleep on it all and now have ink marks on the sheets, my legs and my arms. (Sadly, all these things really have happened.)

That’s where I am with Witch Heart right now, the third book in my Elemental Witches series. I’ve hit my stride. I’ve got a firm handle on my characters and the plot is progressing nicely. I’m at that point where I’m consumed.

Christmas, what’s that? Good thing I’ve almost got all my shopping done. Housework? Pbbbtbwhahaha.

My hero is particularly fun to write. He’s a secondary in Witch Blood, so I already had a pretty good grip on his personality and backstory. Adam is fun to write because his personality isn’t a whole lot different from mine. When I’m in his head it feels sort of comfortable. Odd, since he’s a guy (and a guy’s guy, too), but there you have it. There’s no logic to this stuff.

So, anyway, Witch Heart is officially eating my brain (and I wouldn’t have it any other way).

What are some activities in your life that consume you? Something that makes you forget to eat and sleep and drives you to distraction?

Lost in the corn maze and considering a path of our own devising.

I usually take a few days off after I’ve met a deadline. In this case, I turned in The Darkest Kiss (after finishing the book in a record three months) on Friday. So I took the weekend off (mostly).

Yesterday I had a booksigning in Lexington, KY with Lora Leigh, Shiloh Walker and Toni Blake/Lacey Alexander. But that’s not really work, more like play. Sunday my husband and I took our daughter to a function at a local farm where we picked pumpkins, went on a hay ride and navigated a corn maze. We had a nice day together. I love spending time with my family. I’m blessed because I get to do a lot of that. I never take it for granted.

Er, a quick note about the corn maze…a whole bunch of us got lost in this thing…pretty badly. We actually cheated and found a pathway out through the stalks. Otherwise I think someone would have stumbled across our time-whitened bones sometime in the future. This autumn, beware the corn mazes, people. Beware.

In all, it was a nice weekend and yet….and yet…I’m itchy to start a new book. Funny, isn’t it? I can’t even take off a couple days without starting to plot the next novel. It’s a sickness, I swear.

And I’m a fan of authors taking breaks. I think we all need to do that once in a while to rejuvenate, recharge the muse, so to speak. But every time I try to take time off, even if it’s only a couple of days, I always find my brain turning toward a plot. Even though I’m not writing, I’m still writing…at least in my head. I’m like a terrier with a tennis ball and wicked case of obsessive compulsive disorder.

So, yeah, it was a nice weekend. How was yours?

Oh, and where’s my laptop?

The winner of CHOCOLATE contest from last week (on this blog), selected by random drawing (blame my husband) is dorkybarb! Please email me within two weeks, Barb! anyabast (at) yahoo.com