So, holidays are over, and it’s back to work. Back to the day job, back to the night job, back to writing. Not that I wasn’t trying to write over Christmas, but Mother Nature had other ideas:

This was two storms ago. I can see the corners wearing away on my poor shovel and am already plotting a replacement.

In the midst of all my nature-inspired strength and endurance training, I forgot to read. For those of you who write, you know full well how important it is that a writer continue to read. Inside their genre, outside their genre–it doesn’t matter. But, I was ‘hooked on shoveling’ (or trapped in shoveling, if I wanted to get out of the house), and so my poor Kobo lay on my bedside table, a forlorn and forgotten object.

Then my muse got pissed, because I wasn’t giving him/her/xem anything. For those who think that muses are delicate creatures, who need to be coaxed and seduced into cooperation–boy, are you wrong. Muses are bratty, rough, coarse and very, very self-oriented. That’s why we spend so much time courting them–they’ve got more ego than a whole roomful of Hollywood stars and have no compunction about flying the coop if they don’t get exactly what they want.

So, while the snow flies and the wind whistles about my house, I’m making offerings to my muse, in the form of my TBR pile. The Peacock Prince is my current bait–I was surprised because I thought the premise wouldn’t work, and yet it does. Next up, I’m not sure–Flesh Cartel comes out tonight. And I have Fortune’s Pawn, which is not erotic romance, but an interesting and well-written scifi.

And there’s my own stuff to work on. Because now that I’m putting out for him/her/xem, there’s a slow strip-tease of plot occurring, a gradual reveal of the curves and edges of the storyline. Not everything, not yet, and certainly not enough to satisfy, but it keeps me coming back.

Just like a good striptease should.