CL Pauwels at Large

What a whirlwind! Exhilarating, exciting, overwhelming, exhausting weekend at the fabulous Killer Nashville conference where I finally got to meet the Deadly Duo of Deadly Writes Publishing, Bill and Sharon Hopkins, in person, and where FORTY & OUT was so warmly received.

I made it through the Debut Novelists panel (in fine company with Lisa Alber (KILLMOON), David Burnsworth (SOUTHERN HEAT), Jessie Bishop Powell (MARRIAGE AT THE RUE MORGUE), Tierney James (AN UNLIKELY HERO), and Editor Sarah Williams standing in for R.M. Cartmel (THE RICHEBOURG AFFAIR), moderated by Nancy Sartor (BONES ALONG THE HILL)) without embarrassing myself too much.

So many lovely folks to meet and share writing adventures with – too many to name here, but I’ll be busy for days sorting business cards and updating all my social media feeds so I don’t lose contact with any of them.

I came home to a generous blog post touting FORTY & OUT by the wonderful Patricia Gligor (with a giveaway – click on over and comment to enter), and a humbling interview by the always-gracious Sharon Short in the “Literary Life” column of Sunday’s Dayton Daily News. How great is that?!

And as much as I’m itching to dive into the next Jadz novel (yes, there’s one in the works!), classes started today, too, so I have fifty college freshmen demanding my attention for a bit. The frustration reminded me of a blog post I wrote several years ago: “I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the keys all day!”

How do you balance the demands of life and writing?