Here it is December and I’ve only made one blog post all year. It’s been an eventful year in my personal life. I’m not going to go into details here because, honestly, most of it is personal and nobody else’s business. But for the couple of you who may care …

After 32 years of marriage, my wife and I separated last year. The divorce became final this past October. I moved into an apartment following the separation and lived there for a year. About a month ago I started the process of buying a house and actually closed and began moving in about a week ago. I stayed in the OKC metro to be close to my kids. Kim and I are getting along and have vowed to remain friends despite the divorce. She helped me move. It’s been hard living alone and coming to terms with the fact that she was more right than I liked to admit about me not being a good husband … or father.

The separation caused the biggest writer’s block I’ve ever experienced. In eight months I wrote a total of eight pages. I finally just abandoned the two projects I was working on, another Western that was about half finished, and a contemporary romance that was probably four-fifths complete. I started something else completely different and am happy to say I’m back on track and writing fairly regularly again.

I also left the high school where I worked for 12 years. The superintendent there at first supported teachers in the walk-out back in the spring, then sold us out and ordered us back to work, claiming to have board approval when he did not. About 100 teachers left the district over that. Not all of them went on the TV news to talk about how we were betrayed. That was me. I have a bad habit of burning bridges. I went to another metro high school, and I’ve been extremely unhappy there.

I’m reading a lot about book promotion, trying to understand why my books don’t sell more. According to what I’ve read, with the number of books I have out, I should be able to support myself with writing. But I can’t. Maybe my books just suck. During the writer’s block, I seriously thought about just giving it up.

Bottom line, I intend to start blogging again. Maybe doing some videos or podcast-type things. But I don’t want it all to be, “Buy my books!” I’m still thinking about a platform that I can sustain that might interest somebody. Any suggestions?