So it's been a super duper long time since I posted here, no? I've started and abandoned several posts over the past year, but I just don't have much time for blogging these days and I feel kind of weird posting random thoughts or personal stories that are mostly only interesting to me. But I've been meaning to write up a little State of the Rachel for readers who've been sending me questions, most specifically The Question, and give a general idea of what I'm doing these days.
Once upon a time I was a writer whose husband traveled a lot, who had a great day job and lots of free time to sit and ponder and scribble away. I considered myself possibly one of the most mellow people I knew. In the past two years, this all changed: my husband changed jobs and stopped traveling so much, we had a baby, I eventually left the wonderful corporation I'd worked at for over a decade. We jettisoned half our belongings and moved our entire household to Germany. I spent a lot of time sitting in an empty living room on an air mattress and looking after my wee crawler, and sent lonely emails to the writing group I'd left behind in LA. Mellow creativity gave way to lots of new daily tasks and worry and stress, and my writing ground down to a painfully slow crawl.
As we settled in our new life, eventually I started to regain some productivity on the writing front, and things have been going better in 2016. But for all those readers who've asked about book three in the Lost Planet series, I have to tell you that that's not what I'm working on. I have the third book plotted out and have written the first few chapters, but with publishing being a business and middle grade science fiction being a tough sell, at this point there's been no indication that my publisher plans to pick up a third book in the series. This is life; it stinks, but it happens to a lot of authors. I promise you that I very much intend to finish Chase and Parker's story at some point. I was playing the long game when I wrote THE LOST PLANET and planted a ton of clues in that book that won't be answered until later books. There's a reason for every detail, and a big old backstory about war and tragedy and consequences. It kills me--I can't leave that all unfinished. But again, with publishing being business and me needing to push forward in my career, right now I have to focus my efforts elsewhere.
So what am I working on? Well, I don't like to give away too much this early, but my interests remain the same: adventures, stories about friendships, cliffhangers, thoughts about communication and understanding and why the world works the way it works. I have lots of ideas, and I'm working on putting them to paper. That said, I'm entering a time of upheaval again. After a year in Germany, my family is relocating back to Los Angeles this summer (BIG HOORAY). Also happening this summer is baby #2--which is also cause for jubilation, but holy smokes is this going to be a crazy few months. So, stress level isn't going anywhere, but happiness level is going up, and with it hopefully more motivation and more writing and more good things. Who knows when I'll post here again, but I'm always available to answer questions on Facebook and Twitter, and when I have news to share, I'll send it out to my mailing list--sign up if you want to be kept in the loop!
