Even though I’ve had mostly legitimate setbacks on my novel project, I’m really starting to feel like I’m treading water and, to mix metaphors, in need of some roadside assistance to get going again.

I started this current novel over 18 months ago, when I first learned my mother was stage four in her cancer and we’d be losing her soon. I suppose it was a bit of an escape, as well as a way of coping with the looming loss.

Which is odd because the novel doesn’t really deal with grief directly, and its theme is actually rather light and breezy, even though death is a major part of the novel – it being, of course, a mystery novel.

I suppose in some ways, enough time has gone by that I am coping with Mom’s death better these days and the novel is less therapeutic than it started out to be. But I really do hope to get back on track soon; considering why I started it, I’d love for this project to turn into my first published novel, so I can dedicate it to my Mom.

I’d surrender all the club flyers you could shake a stick at for one thing: a PC that works smoothly and fast, and time enough to write.

It’s been rare to have either, let alone both, lately. Yet that is certainly the way I’d most like to spend my time in the evening when my wife and I go to our corners to wind down before sleep. I’m spending a lot more time lately in the evening with my father and my wife, and I love it; but in the late evening hours, I do want more time to write, and a PC that doesn’t hold me back from doing so.

Is that too much to ask?

With all my PC troubles, my writing time’s been suffering lately; I have enough time for blogging, which brings in much-needed funds, but no time for any novel writing. It’s like someone took thermogenic fat burners to my writing time and burned most of it away.

Trouble is, I’m really full of ideas for my novel right now; but with my laptop as slow as it is and my desktop constantly in for repairs, it’s just hard to find the time.

Of course, I’d have more time to write if I didn’t take time to pray; but my prayer life has to come before my writing life, or the writing I do becomes worthless to me.

While I am still working on my mystery novel, my sermon and commentary writing has taken up more time than I had anticipated this past month or two. Certainly, I don’t mind the sacrifice of novel-writing time; my ministry work is more important to me, after all.

Yet I do quite look forward to digging back into the world I’ve created for this novel. For those interested in suspense, there’s a lot of tension; for those interested in a supernatural touch, there’s a haunting; for those looking for disability appeal, they’ll be interested in Zach’s parents. There’s a lot to like about the cast of characters I’m assembling.

I just wonder if they’ll mind having the holidays off?

I’m finally making progress again on my mystery novel, thanks in no small part to having a lighter load on Torah commentaries. I’m writing new pages of copy several times a week. That’s progress, and I’m thankful for it.

I’m glad it happened before I needed to start searching for the best wrinkle cream out there; it’s been quite a year of delays, so it’s nice to get back into a rhythm with this novel.

Sometimes I daydream about living in some exotic locale, like Oahu. After Minnesota has been hit twice with early October snow, I’m thinking about it now more than ever.

Of course, warm weather has its downsides, such as the distractions of getting out on the beach and enjoying the tropical locale. But really, what could be more inspiring than spending some time in a tropical paradise?

Yeah, I daydream about it. And then I stop procrastinating and get back to writing.

Sometimes writing is a joy, sometimes it’s a task, and sometimes it’s a job. No matter which it feels like, though, the task is always the same: come up with words to describe stuff, tell a story, or relay some information. So whether its diet pill reviews or the great novel you’ve been slaving over, the blank page is something we all must face regularly.

At times like that, I do admit I prefer to write reviews or interview or whatnot, rather than my creative pursuits, simply because without that spark of creativity, the results are never the same.

Sometimes it feels like you almost have to know your characters better than you know your spouse, to be a successful writer. While I love my wife, I can’t say I know all her habits backward and forward. That isn’t essential in a marriage; but to write a novel, you have to know if your female lead uses eye cream or not before bed – something you may not want to be aware of with a spouse.

It’s odd and it feels almost like neglecting your spouse, to know your characters so well. But then, that’s just another good reason to always make sure that I take my wife out once a week on our date night. After all, you can’t snuggle up to a warm character at night… so it’s good to keep those priorities in line.

Lately I’ve been putting in a lot of long nights but not getting any creative writing done, even though the engines are turning up in the ol’ creative noggin. It’s frustrating that I’ve spent more time pondering the best acne treatment lately than I have a character’s motivation for murder despite being innocent.

So I guess the key to all this is simply making time and re-prioritizing my life. That would get most of the roadblocks out of the way.

I have been in or traveled through Dallas, TX, three times now and have not yet experienced a stay in any Dallas Texas hotels. This is more by circumstance than design. Once I spent a few hours there, including some time at the Sixth Floor Museum, but kept on traveling. Another time I only drove through on the way to other places. And the third time, I was planning on staying overnight, but it didn’t work out and I ended up deadheading it back to Minnesota the same night I went down.

It’s too bad because without a stay like that, it’s kind of hard to capture the real flavor of a place. I’d love to have more Dallas exposure so that when the time comes, I could write of the area convincingly. But it hasn’t happened yet.

Oh well.

Moving forward, the best way for me to make sure I never lose 80 pages of a manuscript again will be for me to back up my data religiously. Of course, I knew this before I lost so much of my novel, but I just never followed through. No longer.

There are plenty of ways to back up data. I say… use as many as possible and be overly redundant! And always look for a good sale, like the kind you can find at Buy.com. They offer everything one might need to ensure data security several ways and through several methods.

The handiest, of course, is through the use of a flash drive. These things range from small to very small, and usually you can pick up a fair amount of memory for a small price. About two gigabytes will run sometimes as low as five bucks, while sixteen gigabytes can often be had for under forty bucks these days.

But one thing I think is essential is to back up your entire hard drive to a second hard drive, at least once a week. That’s why I like the deal Buy.com has right now on a Seagate 1TB external hard drive. It’s just the thing for the job. While not quite as portable as a flash drive, the external hard drives are much larger (this one would be twice as large as my current drive) and are a breeze to install… just plug it in via a USB 2.0 port, let Windows Vista install the driver automatically, and start backing up your data… remember… once a week, like clockwork.

I’ve shopped around and Buy.com’s price of $131.99 is as good a price as I can find anywhere, and the free shipping really seals the deal.

After you get your first rejection on a new project, it’s tempting to sulk a bit; but that’s not how one becomes a successful novelist. You have to burn those feelings away like fat exposed to a healthy dose of Leptovox, and move on.

The best cure is to just set of goal to write the next chapter. Once you do that, you’ll fall in love with the story you’re telling all over again and it all comes back to you; the story’s the thing. Not selling the book, not the advance, not anything else; just telling the best story you can tell the best way you know how.