Category: Writing

My Book Hates Me

Posted on by karennacolcroft

I’ve been working for the past several weeks on a novel with the working title A Fighting Chance. This is a follow-up to Chance Met, the novel I released in March, and continues the story of werewolf Trey Damone and psychic Jeremiah Crawford, along with Trey’s seven-year-old son Mikey. (For those who’ve read Chance Met and Hummus on Rye: Mikey was 6 in those books. His birthday occurs between books in the universe’s timeline, so he’s 7 by the time this book takes place.)

I was excited about this book when I started working on it. I liked getting back into Trey’s and Jeremiah’s minds and continuing the storyline of their relationship and Trey’s efforts to protect Mikey from the family who is trying to take Mikey away.

But, as sometimes happens with writing, now I’m getting stuck in various points of the story. I can’t quite get the plot to cooperate and fit with what happens in other books that take place in the same universe and the same approximate time frame. And I can’t manage to get Trey and Jeremiah in bed together, which…it’s a romance, sex is kinda supposed to happen between these characters. (Note: Romance with one or more asexual characters and no sexual activity at all is completely valid; it just doesn’t work for *these* characters given that there is sexual attraction and activity in Chance Met.) But the other pieces of the plot are taking up so much page count and story time that there just hasn’t been a point where Trey and Jeremiah have been able to do anything sexual. They aren’t even together for a good third of the story so far.

I don’t know if this book is going to work out as I planned. Right now part of me wants to scrap the whole thing and give up on it entirely; part wants to scrap most of what I’ve written so far and start over from scratch; and part wants to keep going with the way the story is and see if it pulls itself together and starts cooperating with me.

I love being a writer. But I’m a far bigger fan of *having written* than I am of *writing* sometimes…

Snippet from A Fighting Chance

Posted on by karennacolcroft

A Fighting Chance is the book I’m currently working on. It’s the follow-up to Chance Met, continuing Trey and Jeremiah’s story. Writing it hasn’t been exactly easy; I keep writing things that I then realize belong later in the story, so then I have to rearrange things. (This is what happens when I don’t thoroughly plot the book in advance; I’m doing the “follow the characters where they lead” thing with this one.)

Since I’m deeply involved in trying to finish writing the first draft of this book by my target date of August 6, and I’m also preparing for a trip to Prince Edward Island this week, instead of writing a longer blog post I’m choosing to just share a tidbit from A Fighting Chance. So here we go:

For only a moment, Trey wasn’t sure he’d heard Jeremiah correctly. He’d just confessed to Jeremiah that he was a frigging werewolf, for crying out loud. Jeremiah’s reaction couldn’t have been to say he loved Trey.

But that was exactly what he’d said. He loved Trey. And Trey loved him. Having heard Jeremiah say it, Trey was easily able to say it back.

Jeremiah’s arms tightened around him. “I’m so glad you said that.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Trey said, trying to keep his tone light. “How could you not know?”

“I don’t read your mind without your permission.” Jeremiah made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. “And I knowing and believing aren’t always the same thing.”

“That they aren’t.” Trey nuzzled the other man’s throat then pulled away. “This was not the reaction I pictured when I rehearsed telling you about the werewolf thing. I was kind of envisioning you running screaming out of here.”

“That might worry your neighbors.” Jeremiah grinned. “I already knew, Trey, remember? And it would take a lot more than that to scare me away.”

“Daddy, can I come back yet?” Mikey asked from the kitchen.

Trey rolled his eyes. The apartment wasn’t all that big, and he and Jeremiah hadn’t exactly kept their voices down. Mikey had probably heard every word they’d said. Not that they had discussed anything Mikey couldn’t hear. Privacy simply would have been nice. “Yes, bud, you can come back.”

Mikey walked in and knelt beside the coffee table. “Can I have another piece of pizza? I ate all of the other one. Even the crust.”

“Go ahead.” Bemused, Trey watched his son pull another slice out of the pizza box and take a bite. “Thank you for being patient.”

“You’re welcome,” Mikey said through a mouthful of pizza.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Trey said automatically. “Were you listening while you were in the kitchen?”

Mikey shook his head and swallowed loudly. “You didn’t want me to. Except it’s hard not to hear you, so I was making up a song in my head so I wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t know you made up songs.” Looking interested, Jeremiah leaned forward and took a piece of pizza. “Will you sing it for me?”

“Maybe, but it’s not done yet.” Mikey put down his pizza. “Are you going to be here more, Jeremiah?”

“What do you mean?” Jeremiah bit into his pizza.

“Daddy and you are boyfriends, right? And you just had a ‘grownup talk.’” The boy made air quotes with his fingers. “Did you talk about living with us?”

Trey snorted, and Jeremiah started coughing and pounding his chest with a fist. Concerned, Trey patted Jeremiah’s back. “Choking isn’t recommended.”

“When pizza attacks,” Jeremiah gasped between coughs.

“I guess that’s a no.” Mikey looked disappointed. “But you’d need to ask if it’s okay to live here anyway.”

“I would?” Jeremiah asked.

“Yeah, ’cause…” Mikey looked at Trey. “Never mind.”

“Because the landlord won’t let people just randomly move in,” Trey filled in smoothly. His heart pounded. Thank god Jeremiah didn’t have werewolf-level senses; hopefully he wouldn’t notice Trey’s anxiousness. Mikey knew he had to watch what he said about Trey and the other pack members, but the kid was only seven. Seven-year-olds sometimes forgot to be careful.

Fortunately, Jeremiah seemed to accept the landlord excuse. “Yeah, I’d have to be on the lease or something. Anyway, Mikey, I’m honored that you want me to move in, but it isn’t the right time just yet.” To Trey’s relief, he sounded amused.

To fend off any further questions, Trey decided to just tell Mikey what he and Jeremiah had discussed. “I told Jeremiah that I’m a werewolf.”

“Oh.” Mikey picked up his pizza slice again. “He knew, right?”

Jeremiah laughed. “Yes, Mikey. I knew something, anyway. And now I know the truth, and it’s okay.”

“Good. Daddy can’t help it.” Mikey looked at the pizza slice and set it back down. “Maybe I don’t want this. Sorry, Daddy.”

“It’s all right. I’ll eat it.” Trey’s head was spinning. The conversation with Jeremiah had gone far too smoothly, and he couldn’t help feeling like something was about to go horribly wrong. The post-hunt fog in his brain wasn’t helping. “Jeremiah, I told you now because…Well, because I love you, like I said. But because if something’s happening with Mikey, I need you to know the truth so you can help us.”

“I’m here.” Jeremiah spoke quietly, but those two words carried such strong emotion Trey’s eyes watered. “Whatever you need. Including someone to take care of the small fry on full moon nights.”

Healing My Writing

Posted on by karennacolcroft

I love writing books.

For several years, I couldn’t say that. Most of my life, writing was therapy for me. It was how I sorted out all the “how to human” questions I had as an undiagnosed neurodivergent person. It was how I explored gender and relationships during times when I couldn’t explore those in my own life. It was how I processed trauma, how I fixed things, how I tried to figure things out.

At some points in my life, it was literally how I stayed alive.

Then, in 2014ish, I started struggling. At that point, I was five years into being a published author. My books were selling poorly, and sales were getting worse all the time. Publishers were going out of business, in one case taking my rights to my books with them. (They allegedly sent me rights reversion notices for all the books; I never received those notices and my emails requesting that the notices be re-sent were ignored.) Publishers were doing… let’s say interesting mathematics when it came to calculating royalties.

I was struggling with the pace I’d set myself; I was writing both romance and young adult fiction, and I was so afraid readers would forget me if too much time passed that I was pushing myself to write a book or more every single month. But the idea well was running dry, and I was starting to get feedback and criticism about repetitious characters and plots. Which didn’t help my mental state or my view of my writing, which meant my writing suffered even more.

At this time, I was also dealing with some personal life/mental health stuff. Past trauma resurfaced along with the infliction of new trauma at the hands of someone I trusted. Since the trauma was sexual, I became unable to write sexual content–which was necessary content in my romances. It all culminated in my having such a massive panic attack while trying to write that I almost had to be hospitalized.

I stopped writing romances in 2015. My novel Dawn Over Dayfield–which was more romantic suspense than actual romance and included only one very brief sexual scene–was the last Karenna Colcroft thing I wrote before I gave up entirely on romance writing and tried to focus on my young adult books. But once Karenna Colcroft was put into hibernation, my YA writing started to suffer as well. My last YA novel (under the author name Jo Ramsey) was written in 2016 and published in 2017… and then I gave up entirely on writing. For the next several years, other than occasional blog posts and really long Facebook posts, I wrote nothing.

After a couple-few years, I started writing again. This time, I wrote nonfiction books connected to the channeling and mindset coaching business I was attempting to build (https://riverlightbearer.com). I enjoyed creating those books and started thinking maybe I could write *something* again.

In 2020, during the pandemic days of sitting at home with little to do, my partner and I were talking about the shortage of children’s fiction that includes accurate, positive depictions of pagan spirituality, alternative family structures, and other concepts. My partner looks after an elementary-school-aged girl; I have a grandson about the same age. I said to myself, “I’m a writer. Maybe I could write books for those two kids that have the concepts my partner and I talked about.” So I did. I wrote a series that currently numbers five books; it was supposed to be 8, but one of the plot points in book 6 gave me issues because it was too close to something that had just happened in my own life. But those five books did get written, and as with the nonfiction, I chose to self-publish them. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BC4TVKZ3)

And then in 2021, when my younger kid was staying with me for the summer and I was trying to find ways to occupy myself without intruding into the space they were using while staying here, I started rereading some of my published books. For a few years, I’d bandied about the idea of rereleasing my Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series, but I kept deciding not to. I didn’t want to do the work of editing the books. I didn’t think they would sell. I didn’t have time. I came up with a ton of reasons that all boiled down to the fact that I was still recovering/healing from the issues in 2014 and 2015, and I simply wasn’t ready to resurrect Karenna Colcroft and try writing again.

But in 2021, rereading those books, I thought, “Damn, these are GOOD! I was a good writer.” And I decided it was time for Kyle, Tobias, and their friends to see the light of day again. I even wrote three brand-new romance novels, one of which was published last year; the other two won’t be published because they are heterosexual romance, and I realized pretty quickly in 2022 that focusing on male/male romance both results in better connections with readers and other authors *and* is better for my mental health. (Though one of those other two novels will be scavenged to form the plot of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 7, and some components of the other are forming part of the framework and plot of A Fighting Chance, my current work-in-progress that’s a follow-up to Chance Met.)

And seeing that I was able to update and revise the RWDEM novels, that readers wanted them and that readers and authors from the “before times” remembered me and were happy to see me back, I started loving writing again.

Well… mostly. Sometimes the characters and plot points still give me angst, and don’t even get me started about writing the *blurbs*. But I am enjoying writing books again. And I’m excited to start sharing new things as well as rereleasing some of my favorites from my previously-published works.

Release Week!

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Happy July! This week marks the release of the newly revised and updated version of Try the Tofu (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 4). I’m so glad to bring Tobias’s perspective back to the series; unlike the first three books, Try the Tofu is narrated by Tobias Rogan, the Alpha who is mated to the world’s only(?) gay vegan werewolf. Of course, his mate, Kyle Slidell, still plays a major role, but Try the Tofu and book five of the series, Tempeh for Two, are very much Tobias’s stories as the werewolf world faces a threat from a very unexpected source.

Because we’re in Tobias’s head for this book, in addition to better understanding who he is and why, we get a deeper glimpse into the traumas he’s experienced and the PTSD he lives with. Some parts of this book were difficult to write and may be painful or triggering for readers. Tobias is a strong, powerful Alpha, but that doesn’t mean he’s “gotten over” the traumatic events of his past. He does experience PTSD. He has anger issues. Despite being a werewolf, he is very human.

But he is also arguably the most powerful Alpha in the United States. He’s a compassionate leader and friend, a caring partner, and an advocate for those like him who have lived through trauma and live with its aftermath.

I hope readers enjoy getting to know him on a new level in this book! Try the Tofu is available on Amazon for Kindle preorder and will release Thursday, July 13, in Kindle and paperback formats.

I Finished!

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Last week, I finished writing Fill the Empty Spaces! I thought I’d finished this back in last March, but when I sat down to edit it a few weeks ago, the characters and I agreed that the story needed to continue a little longer. So I started working on a continuation.

It wasn’t easy. Sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure where the story was going, and Del Nethercott, the narrator, wasn’t being especially helpful. And I kind of wanted to work on something else, something new, so I was being a bit oppositional as the author. But we got there eventually.

As originally written, the story was not a romance. There was no happily-ever-after or even happy-for-now at the end; instead, there was “Del isn’t ready for a relationship yet but when he is, Lochlan will be waiting.” A hopeful ending, sealed with a kiss, but not a typical romance ending. Which made sense to me. The story begins a month after Del lost his long-term partner, Austin. Although the book spans several months, Del and Austin had been together for over twenty years, and Del’s grief is deep. By the end of the story, he knows he’s falling for Lochlan, but he isn’t ready to move on to a new relationship yet. Hence the kiss and the hopeful ending.

The extension of the story changes that by continuing the story for another month. By the end of the book, nearly six months have passed since Austin’s death. Del is still grieving, but he’s had a bit more time to process losing Austin and to consider what he truly wants with Lochlan. The story as it is now ends with a more heated kiss and a declaration of love on both sides, along with the agreement that while they’re going to take things slowly, they are now in a relationship. This book does not include any sex, so those who are looking for high heat and searing sex scenes might not be pleased, but a sex scene didn’t feel true to either character.

Fill the Empty Spaces is scheduled for release on October 13. The image below is NOT the actual cover; it’s just what I used as inspiration and a place-holder when posting about the book online.

“Stop Writing Damaged Characters”

Posted on by karennacolcroft

One of the most common pieces of writing wisdom that gets bandied about is “write what you know.”

One of the things I know–much more thoroughly than I would prefer–is trauma. I have experienced various forms of trauma throughout my life, beginning at a very young age, and I live with Complex PTSD among other diagnoses.

I also live with neurodivergence. I don’t have a formal diagnosis of autism, but several medical and mental health professionals have expressed their belief that I am autistic, and even if I’m not, trauma also alters how one’s brain works and therefore is a form of neurodivergence.

Those things tend to show up in my writing. Many of my primary characters have experienced trauma in their lives, and some are still deeply affected by it while others have received support in learning to manage their PTSD. I write characters whose experiences and way of navigating the world make sense to me, which means that often, they are like me.

Early on in my writing career, nearly a decade and a half ago, I submitted a book to a publisher I’d been working with. This was probably my fifth or sixth book with them; I can’t recall for sure, because it was a long time ago. And like the other books, this one had a heroine (this was when I was almost solely writing heterosexual romance) who had a trauma history and was still being affected by it as she tried to progress in her healing journey and in her relationship with the hero of the story.

The publisher told me I needed to stop writing damaged characters, because readers didn’t want to read about people like that.

The publisher was wrong.

It is absolutely true that some readers don’t want to read about characters who aren’t perfect, especially in a romance story. And that’s fine; those readers are not my target audience.

It is *also* absolutely true that there are plenty of readers who are, themselves, trauma survivors who are struggling with their pasts and how it has affected their minds and their way of navigating the world. And despite what this publisher said to me, I received reviews and messages from some of those readers thanking me for not only *accurately* depicting PTSD in my books but also for showing that one does not have to be “fully healed” from trauma (something I don’t believe is even possible, healing is a *journey*, not a destination) in order to find love, respect, and a healthy relationship.

The other thing my publisher was wrong about is that my characters are “damaged.”

Being traumatized does not mean someone is “damaged.” Living with PTSD or mental illness is not “damage.” (Some people prefer to use that term for their own experiences, and that’s valid; I take issue with the term being applied to *other people*, especially by someone who doesn’t actually have lived experience with these things.) It means that one’s life has been altered. One’s perceptions and understanding of themselves and the world have been changed. But I am not “damaged,” and neither are my characters, though some of them certainly *feel* as if they’ve been damaged.

In my Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series, Tobias Rogan is the Alpha of a very small werewolf pack in Boston. He is also, as we learn as the series progresses, the most powerful werewolf in the United States. He *chooses* to remain with a small pack because he doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want to rule others. He simply wants to make people’s lives better.  But his power and dominance are innate, and he uses them to help those he cares about–which eventually extends well beyond his pack.

Tobias is also a trauma survivor. He grew up in an abusive household. He was changed to werewolf at age 15 (in violation of shifter law) in a very traumatic assault. Decades later, when the series takes place, he still experiences flashbacks and other signs of PTSD. Which *affect* him, of course… but they do not render him “damaged.” They do not prevent him from being a fair and powerful Alpha werewolf. And they do not prevent him from finding, accepting, and building a life with his mate, Kyle Slidell.

I did not listen to that publisher all those years ago. And I continue not to listen. I write characters who have lived experiences I understand and can relate to. And I will continue to do so.

When the Characters Take Over

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Several weeks ago, I finished writing the first draft of a new novel called Fill the Empty Spaces. This novel started as a way of processing the passing of my mother at the beginning of December; although she and I didn’t have the best relationship, the realization that she was no longer around hit harder than I’d thought it would. Through much of my life, until my writing brain stopped functioning in 2015, writing was how I processed, how I coped, and sometimes how I kept myself alive. Although I didn’t write much of anything for six years, now that I’ve started writing again, it has once again become one of my ways of dealing with and understanding life. And, in this case, death.

(This isn’t the final cover, it’s just something I’m using to keep myself in the story’s mindset.)

When I started writing Fill the Empty Spaces, I didn’t know it would turn out to be a novel. I thought I was writing a short story. But Del Nethercott, the main character/narrator, had other ideas. So did Lochlan Moroney, the character who becomes Del’s close friend and possible love interest. At the beginning of the story, Del is only about a month past losing his longterm partner Austin, who was killed by a drunk driver. The last thing Del’s thinking about is a new relationship; he’s barely functioning day to day, and his grief over Austin consumes him. The story extends through a few months, until four or five months after Austin’s death, and we witness Del’s healing–though of course he’s still grieving–and the beginning and blossoming of his connection with Lochlan. At the beginning, I thought Spaces would turn out to be contemporary; Lochlan threw a metaphysical/paranormal loop into the story that wound up being a key part of the story. And so the “short story” became a novel.

As I said, several weeks ago, I finished the first draft of Spaces. Or so I thought. To be honest, when I said, “The end,” I wasn’t actually certain it was. I’d reached a point in the story where it felt like I could stop and hold something over for a follow-up book, probably from Lochlan’s point of view.  The story didn’t end with a “happily ever after” or even really with a “happy for now.” It ended with “Del, you aren’t ready for a relationship, so let’s stay friends until you *are* ready and then see what happens.” The book as I ended it at that point was not a romance (nor did I intend to say it was; I was very clear in talking about it that it was a novel with romantic undertones).

This past week, I started editing the manuscript. I’d done some editing as I worked on the first draft; I didn’t do much plotting or brainstorming before I started writing, so some of the things I put in the story didn’t work or dragged down the pacing too much to remain, so I’d yoinked those as part of writing the first draft. But there was still work to do.

By the time I reached the end of what I’d written, though, I knew I had to continue the story. Ending it with Del and Lochlan agreeing that they would enter a relationship when Del reached a point in his grieving process that he could handle having a new partner was good, but it wasn’t where Del and Lochlan wanted to end the book. So I finished editing what I’d written and started writing more.

As it stands now, two days into the process of continuing the story, I don’t know where Del and Lochlan want to end up. I’d like to see the book end with them in a relationship, but that’s going to depend on how Del’s grief and healing progress. And with what happens to each of them in the meantime. It’s been a long time since I started writing a book with the mindset of “let’s see where this goes,” and I’m enjoying doing it again, even if these two guys do keep throwing wrenches into the process.

Fill the Empty Spaces is currently planned for release on October 12 of this year. I’ll keep you updated!

“I Don’t Know What to Write!”

Posted on by karennacolcroft

Sometimes my brain just doesn’t want to cooperate with writing anything. It’s frustrating to me when this happens, because a decade or so ago, when I was writing and publishing frequently, I had *too many* ideas. But now, sometimes my mind just goes completely blank and I can’t think of anything to write at all.

It started several years ago, when I started feeling a lot of stress, anxiety, and even full-on panic about writing. I won’t go into the whole story behind that right now; I’ve talked about it online a fair bit and might blog about it more in the future. For now, I’ll just say that due to a combination of personal-life stress and trauma along with poor sales and difficulty coming up with new stories at the pace I’d set myself, the writing part of my brain kind of collapsed. For years, I was unable to write anything at all.

I started writing again in 2020 or 2021, but not romance. Writing romance again didn’t happen until last year. But then I started feeling the stress and pressure again. It’s less than it was, in part because I’m self-publishing; some of the stress and anxiety years ago was a probably-irrational fear that my publishers would be angry with me for not selling more copies of my books. But it’s still present, and it still sometimes results in my mind going blank when I sit down to write something.

This time, I’m giving respect to that fear. That doesn’t mean letting it rule me, but it does mean that rather than fighting against the fears and the “don’t know what to write,” I’m honoring myself to the extent of saying, “Okay, let’s take a break for a week or two and see what happens.” It means rearranging the schedule I’d planned to accommodate not having a new book ready by a certain date, as well as making the decision that I will not announce release schedules more than six months in advance. (With the exception of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 5 and 6, which are coming out in January and July 2024 respectively.)

Sometimes it means not writing anything at all and letting that be the case, rather than letting not writing lead to the additional fear that I’m heading into another years-long stretch of not being able to write or fear that readers will forget I exist and my books will go down the tubes if I don’t release frequently. Trying to force writing when the ideas aren’t there only results in me writing something that’s either complete crap or that I half-ass so I can say it’s done, and obviously neither of those cases yields something I would actually want to put out in public.

At other times, though, ideas come to me and things flow. My novel Fill the Empty Spaces was a case of me saying “I want to write about someone grieving,” and then I followed the story and the main character. It led in a direction I wasn’t anticipating, but I think the book is good, and I will be releasing it in October of this year. A few weeks ago, I went to Canada to visit family and wrote two short stories while I was there, because ideas just popped into my head and I rolled with them.

Right now, I would like to be writing a short story or maybe starting another novel. But I don’t have any ideas, so I’m letting myself not write. The ideas will come, and when they do, I’ll write something good. Something I’ll be proud of. Until then, I’m respecting and honoring the part of me that feels anxious and fearful, and I’m letting writing not happen.

More Release Updates

Posted on by karennacolcroft

The best-laid plans and all of that…

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks looking at the plans I’d made for releases and rereleases and realizing a few things.

First… while I do need to plan things somewhat in advance, when I try to plan too far in advance, my brain rebels. It isn’t a choice on my part; it’s like my circuits overload and my brain just crashes. So I’m making plans for releases and rereleases, but only through January 2024. Things will be updated as I go along.

Second, if I insist that I’m going to write (or even rewrite/re-edit) things by a certain time “no matter what,” it sometimes results in the finished product being forced and not up to the quality standards I want to give to my readers. I need to have deadlines, but I also need flexibility, and I need to allow more time than I think I’ll actually require so that I don’t wind up feeling pressured and start short-cutting and half-assing things. I also need to give myself the freedom to say “Nope, this isn’t working, never mind” on any given project.

Third, and somewhat related to the above, the book I was originally planning to rerelease in September is not a book I actually want to rerelease at this time. Aside from needing more work than I anticipated to bring it to the standards I want, I don’t really connect with either of the two main characters. And if I don’t connect with them, readers won’t either. So this book is on the back burner; over time, I might see if I can do the work it needs not only to fix the current issues with it but also to make the characters people I want to get to know better.

And finally, since I’m now not releasing that book in September, I’ve decided to move my new novel Fill the Empty Spaces up by one month. Fill the Empty Spaces was going to be my November release; it will now be released on October 12. Going forward, I will be planning to release (or rerelease) 4 novels per year. This year, the next two releases will be July 13 (Try the Tofu) and Oct. 12; for 2024, I will be releasing books in January, April, July, and October, with the January and July releases being part of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series. The books for April and October 2024 are to be determined.

In between times, I may put out some free short stories or low-cost shorts/novellas, depending on what the writing part of my brain decides to do.

My two priorities with writing and self-publishing are to release good-quality, entertaining stories with characters that readers–and I–like and want more of; and to maintain my mental and physical health and well-being. By changing my plans as I’ve done, and allowing space to follow the writing muse from time to time, my hope is to meet both of those priorities.