If you bumped into me in the last few days and wondered why I looked so overwhelmed and harassed, here are a few of the writing jobs on  my MUST DO list:

• Write letters and send a poem to the women from my fall Writing & Spirituality class.
• Write the article for historylink.org (I've been procrastinating on this for 2 years now!)
• Write the bio on JH for my church Progress (a monthly newsletter; I was asked to do this in April!)
• Finish my student papers (this means writing a letter to each student after reading and rereading and digesting what they've written in their longer Creative Nonfiction paper. I still have four to go that should have been handed back yesterday...when they turned in a new set of papers.)
• Meet the November deadlines with my poetry manuscript WHAT SAVES US (because my poetry mss. can't win a contest and get published if it's not "out" somewhere).

When I get these things done I will be able to go back to work on a novel. (Either HEARTWOOD, or THE SORREL MARE, or maybe the waitress novella...one of these is going to be in the mail to my agent by the end of the year.)

I want to work on the novel right now. But I'm trying to trick myself into doing this other work first, and posting about them here is part of that process. (I'll report in every day with a progress report.)

Watch this space!