I’m working on my next novel even while I’m editing my first. Writers know the pressure. The first novel isn’t enough to make it. It must be a series. The mathematics predicts no success until the third novel, so you’ve got to get moving.

My next novel is part of the Murder For Me series that begins with its launch this year. If you’re a writer, you know that your writing is always with you. Not like a friend. More like a nagging, persistent parent.

This weekend I was at a barbeque cook off at the Houston Rodeo with twenty thousand of my friends. Drunk, rowdy friends. The people watching was the best.

I’m in one tent-check my video page to see what it’s like here http://www.russelllittleauthor.com/my-videos/ if you don’t know what I’m talking about-later in the night, on my third straight Dry Creek whiskey, and I looked over and saw a guy with a star tattoo on half his face. Not the star you’re thinking about either, but some weird star that has long vertical points and short horizontal points. And the center is his left eye.

I couldn’t stop looking at this guy. I should have been enjoying myself. I was before. But after I saw this guy all I could think about was that one of the minor characters in my next novel-I know them all intimately-must have that tattoo. I don’t know what it means. I’ll have to research it. But I know that this character has this tattoo, and more. I begin, right there while someone else is talking to me, bands are playing, drunk women dancing around me, to build the character’s tattoos all over his body. It was the most exciting part of the night for me.

I’m still thinking about it. Tonight, I had to stop what I was doing and write this before it drifted away. It was as much to cement in place my plan for this minor character as it was to write this blog.

It’s exciting to be a writer. It’s exciting to have a story to tell. I just wish it didn’t have to burst into my mind when I’m on my third Dry Creek.

You can read more of my blogs at RussellLittleAuthor.com. You can see the videos of the tent at the cook off in the blog at .

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