I don’t care to the idea of daydreaming now that I’m over 40, but I do like to think about things I hope to do one day, like making New Orleans hotel reservations to attend a mystery writer’s conference.

Wouldn’t that be fun? I’ve been to Louisiana only once, but nowhere near New Orleans. But I get the feeling that even post-Katrina, it’d be a nice place for a mystery writer’s conference.

Of course, to get to that someday, I have to crack the whip on myself and finish some mystery novels; otherwise I’d be an attendee and not a guest.

It turns out I will be delivering two sermons… one of them twice… at the end of December and to be ready and more than ready, I’m starting to work on them now. Of course, this slows down progress on my novel, but not to a complete stop.

It’s a challenge to write a novel when you have other writing responsibilities, but when I consider how many writers out there would love to have this kind of problem, I don’t mind the deadline pressure quite so much. Still, it’d be nice to capture moments like this on film; I suspect it won’t always be so nice. Heck, it might even be worthy of a digital frame.