Where Does the Time Go?

I thought it had been a year since I had posted on my blog. Imagine my surprise when I finally took a look and discovered it's been a year and a half! Do I feel guilty? Yes. Can I make excuses? Probably. But first, I want to apologize to my few followers who have (I hope) been waiting to hear from me again.

I actually do have a few excuses. 2011 was a full year, including, on the sad side, the death of both my mother in May and my mother-in-law in August. I have found that emotional hits like that put a real damper on my ability to concentrate.

On a happier note, in addition to three weddings to cheer me up, I spent about six weeks on the west coast to introduce my third book, Who More Than Wished You Were Dead?, to the area where it is set.  I'll save details of the trip (I drove from Michigan) for my next blog. An upside to being alone is that I have the time to attend writer's conferences, and took in the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference in Bellevue, Washington, a great place for me to do research on my newest book, Where Did You Go to Die? That one is now with the editor and should be out sometime this summer. I also went to Crime Bake in Boston, and was happy to spread my wings in a different direction. Then, this February I attended Love is Murder in Chicago, deciding I should probably spend my energy (and money) in my local area.

So 2011 turned out to be a year of travel. I expect to do more of that until I'm ready to settle down again, but right now I plan to get back down to writing and blogging and updating my web site and wallowing in good books. Next, I'll write a bit about my trip out west before putting the past behind and concentrating on what is going on right now.