With an entire week of distraction-free writing lined up for this week, there was no way I wasn’t going to have a finished a first draft of The Midsummer Murders (Maid, Mother and Crone Series, Book Three) in my hand by now. Last Thursday, I was only a few long days away from finishing the book, and my vacation from the pesky paying job to push myself across the finish line started on Saturday. It was gonna be sweet!

Nope. Ended up in the hospital on Friday with a serious abdominal malfunction. Survived it, though, so there’s that. I’m calling it a win.

Sadly, I didn’t get any writing done for the five days I lay on my back in a hospital bed. I could have. The laptop was there. After the first couple of days, I felt well enough physically. It would have been a nice distraction. But my creativity was completed sapped. I lazed around catching up on all the stuff in my Acorn TV queue instead.

However, I did collect some excellent anecdotes during my stay that will be AMAZING for Natalie’s experience when she is hospitalized in the final book. Never say I don’t do my research, nosirree bob. I had some excellent could-be-paranormal-if-you-want-to-believe experiences while there that I’m already designing scenes around.

But never fear, dears, Natalie is way too tough to stay down for the count for long. As am I!

I did rough out the first book of the Grace Stone Paranormal Mystery Series in my head while I was there, so it wasn’t entirely time wasted. That series is going to be darker than my other books based on how it’s shaping up, but I’m pretty excited about it. Then again, The Familiar was supposed to be a dark book, and look what happened there.

And I do have another week of vacation and absolutely no excuse for not writing since I’m back home now. Feel free to beam good thoughts at me to keep me focused.

Jill Nojack
4/19/2018