Aral and I have spent the last couple of days ensconced at my parent’s ranch atop the Uncompahgre plateau here in Western Colorado. I’ve been sneaking in as many words as I can manage after tucking the little guy into bed, but fatigue and other duties have kept my word count pretty low.

My folks were on a short vacation to visit one of my brothers and his family. The two of them returned late yesterday evening and today they loaded up Aral and set out for adventures aplenty down in the valley. In the elapsed time I’ve already exceeded my word count for the last couple of days so a huge and heart felt thank you is in order.

Recently I found that the single most difficult challenge to my success as a writer has been a lack of time. However, committing acts of fiction seemingly does not require that I block out big chunks of uninterrupted time. Rather I seem to be most effective when I can drop what I’m doing as soon as the next bit of the story enters my head.

I may try and work out how to effectively make voice recordings on my phone so that I can extend the time between trips to the laptop by using a vocal short hand to jot down these little story building blocks that occur to me throughout the day. But, as making a small lunch just confirmed, little tasks away from the laptop can result in huge story gains if I can take the time to write them down when they happen.