A Pup Named Riley

This is Riley and he'd like to take a moment to tell you about himself.

Hi! My name is Riley James, but mom and dad call me Big Guy, The Monster and Meat Head, too. I'm half King Shepard and half Lab and almost 2 1/2 years old! My old dad used to leave me alone outside all day while he went to work and I would get bored and dig holes in the yard. I guess he didn't like that because he sent me to doggy prison. I was there for a really, really long time--almost half my life! All of the other puppies got adopted, but not me. I didn't bark, or pee in my kennel and acted like a complete gentlemen, but most people just walked by without even saying hello. Someone told me it was because I was so big, (95lbs) but I was still just a puppy and needed a family too. Then my new dad found me. He LIKED that I was big and he and mom decided to take me home.

This is a fort my mom built for me.

I was really scared the first few days at their house. Everything was new and strange. I also didn't want them to bring me back, so I stayed on my best behaviour. They gave me food and water and a big bed, which I later ate. Eventually, I realized that mom and dad loved me and were going to keep me FOREVER! I didn't have to pretend to be a gentlemen any longer! Now, mom says I'm really naughty and puts me in timeout in the bathroom when I'm bad. It stinks, a lot.

When I'm not being punished or doing something naughty, I like to play with my ball or a log (sticks are too little for me). Sometimes I like chasing the cats, too; especially Jazzy because she is so mean. Mom used to take me for walks all of the time, but now she and dad have to walk me together because I accidentally pulled her down the sidewalk when a bicycle went past. I just wanted to say hello!

Anyways, it's really nice to meet all of you. Tell your puppies I said hi!

I'm Back Into It!

It feels so amazing to be back in the writing groove that I just had to tell you about it!

In the last two months I've probably only cranked out about 10,000 words. If your not a writer, you should know that that's awful--actually, beyond awful. But I just hadn't been into it as you may have gathered from previous posts. Now, I've reverted to old tactics, but amplified them to the extreme.

When I wrote Secrets Inside Us, I wrote the second half first and then went back and wrote the beginning. When I started writing Secrets That Define Us, (By the way--I'm still not sure if that will be the official title) I wrote the first five chapters, then wrote the last nine, then wrote chapter six, then wrote some random chapter in the middle... well, you get it. But now I've gone to the complete extreme: I've begun writing Secrets Revealed without finishing its predecessor.

I wonder if other authors would slap me on the wrist, stick my head down a toilet or just grunt and say, "Shit happens"?

Anyways, Secrets Revealed is coming along nicely. What took me two months to write in the second book has taken me five days to write in this one. Before I was stuck in my writing rut, I would normally crank out anywhere between 1,000 and 3,500 words a day. I think 5,000 was my max. And now I'm back at it!

In fact, just talking about it is making me want to write the next scene. I have someone I need to kill...