Okay, I admit it.
I am a lousy blogger. I know that I should spend a lot more time on this effort than I do (just a couple of minutes a day would be a considerable improvement). I shouldn’t expect anyone to come here if I don’t come here. It’s a fact of life.
I also realize that compared to other bloggers, I don’t have a lot to say. I find that personally depressing, since it doesn’t match my over-inflated opinion of myself. I read other people’s blogs, and think, wow, where do they get all these ideas? I admit, I often have a lot of ideas, but I figure that everyone else has those ideas, so what is the point of sharing them? Not a very bold attitude, I have to admit.
I would like to say that I am going to change this, but the truth is, I am an old dog, and while I can be taught some new tricks, I have other priorities. I am about to publish book number 20 in the Hot Dog Detective series, The Truculent Trannie. I am working on plotting book number 21, The Unselfish Uncle. After that, I will have only six books left in the series. I have two more over-arching trilogy plots to work on. One focuses on Rufus and the last will focus on Cynthia Pierson. Both over-arching plots will help bring to fulfillment the stories of MacFarland’s closest friends. And finally, the series will end with MacFarland finally resolving his own personal issues, possibly eliminating forever the angst that taints his life.
I am getting close to the point in this series that corresponds with what I often experienced when doing projects for my many consulting clients. Towards the end of a project, there comes a point where you can tell that everything is wrapping up. There are only a few days or weeks left in the project, all the work has been done, and results are starting to come in. It is at this point in a project that I almost always felt an impending sense of loss, that something I had worked intensely on for so long is going to come to an end. I would leave the client, leave the people I’ve worked with so intensely for three, four, or six months, and go on to another client. I wouldn’t know who that client would be. All I knew is that the people I did know would recede into the past, and it was unlikely that I would ever see them again.
It was on these days that I hated being a consultant.
I am reaching that point in writing the Hot Dog Detective series. I can see the end clearly in sight. I know that when the series comes to an end, I will probably never see MacFarland, Pierson, Headley, Lockwood, or any of the characters again. I will move on to another series or at least another novel, and the process will start all over again.
But I still have seven books to write. It’s too soon to get too depressed. MacFarland has to solve another seven murders!