Randy Russell

My posts have been few because I have been very busy getting up early to write a new book. I finished it and that's fun to do.

Someone who emails me regularly asked my why I write. She thought a writer must have something to say or something to share with the world. That isn't me. I write to learn.

Until you do it, it is hard to understand just how much a writer learns about life and people and plants and the sky and... love... and... by writing it. Sometimes I think a book writes me. Truly.

It seems like the book was already there and it is telling me stuff, new stuff -- new people, new places, new dreams, new everything. The book tells me what it is and I just write it down and try to spell it right. Sometimes I do.

And this new book was so much fun to learn that I couldn't stay away from it. The characters kept whispering they had more to do and more to say and more to teach me. I even killed some of the characters and they still had things to do and say. In fact, almost every character in this book was dead when the book started.

I learned so much writing this novel that I am currently calling it Dead School.

The one thing I didn't learn was what to do next. Maybe I'll go back to school soon and see if another book is waiting to tell itself to me.

Until then, I'm going to hike around the yard with my dogs and see where the best shade is. You come too?