Greetings, dear Reader! I’m coming to you live from Kansas City, MO. After a brief three days at home I’ve headed back out again, this time not for vacation but for work. My research partner and I are putting the pieces in place to start a brand new field project right here in Missouri this coming summer.

We typically do our fieldwork in Honduras, but things in Honduras have not exactly been peachy lately and the college that provides our funding won’t accept legal liability for the students we take with us into the field. So, while we wait and hope that the drug-traffic related violence and political instability in Honduras will be short-lived, we’re planning something Stateside so we can keep our field school running.

A lot of this trip is about logistics. Meeting with people. Getting permits and paperwork in order. Making plans, etc. There’s as much of that in archaeology as in any other profession — maybe more!

As those of you who follow me on FB and Twitter are aware, I had a bit of trouble getting down here (the usual BS delays and weather and such), so even though it’s an archaeology work trip, I did get some writing time in as I waited in the airport and on the runway, and so on.

I’m feeling a little frizzled and frazzled on short stories lately. I think this may be from the encouraging/discouraging rut I’ve been in lately where my shorts are getting bounced right on up to the editor and then, after a long, hope-filled wait, being passed on. I know this is ultimately a good thing and it means I’m getting very close and that I should be inspired to work harder (which I am, really!), but it’s also discouraging. So, I’m taking a few days off from shorts and focusing on my novel.

I’m at about the 50K mark and have finally gotten to the part of the novel where the protagonist and antagonist are really up in one another’s faces for the first time…and I’m putting waaaay too much pressure on myself to make it mind-blowingly awesome on the first go-around. I know I just need to get it down on paper, move on, and fix it later…but I can’t. I’ve been looking forward to writing these scenes since I first started conceiving of the novel and now I can’t seem to write a single word I find pleasing.

Sigh.

So, maybe it’s a good thing that I’m busy in meetings all day. Or maybe I should take the next twenty minutes I have free and write something, anything, to move this thing forward.

What do you think?