Not to worry, though this blog has been a little quiet, I did survive my first radio interview and also my first Barnes & Noble reading and signing—and throw a blizzard in there to keep it real. If you’re curious, here’s an update (with photos!) on how the reading went.

I’m still recovering (at heart I am a very shy person who doesn’t like people to look at her… sort of impossible to avoid when you’re standing before a group of people reading stuff out loud).

But now that it’s over and I don’t have a big event to be anxious about anymore, I’m running a solid distraction with freelance work. Finished one big project today only to dive into another, and another. It’s good for my head—though not so good for my stiff neck.

In the midst of all this, I’ve also been finding the voice of my new novel. I’ll talk more about that shortly, maybe this week or next. The most important thing for me when writing a novel is to find the voice. Without the voice, no novel.

And I’m getting ready for a writers colony… now about a month away. It felt very real when I bought my Amtrak ticket… I’ll soon be making a post about writers colonies, and a few inspiring writers are giving me some thoughts on their own experiences and some great advice for how to best use my time there. (If you’ve been to a colony and would like to be included and offer up some wise advice, email me at nova [at] novaren.com.) One thing I know for certain right now: I must not forget to pack a flashlight.

That goes for writing the new novel, too. Seeing as I’m not so articulate today, here’s a blog post by Susan Adrian that’s really resonating with me, it’s called “Darkness.” Just beautiful.