I know a lot of you didn’t see Sunday’s post because I couldn’t get the linky tool to work for some reason. It was just being wonky, I guess. But I had said that I just stopped everything and decided I needed a break. I took about a week off from writing and all the other stuff I had been doing. Last night, I picked back up on the writing. My goal is a cumulative 500 words per day. Taking a week off put me almost at 3500 words behind. Yesterday, I sat down and cranked out about 1200 words. I was pretty pleased with that. If I can just write a little more than 500 each day, I’ll eventually get caught up. And I’m not going to stress about it. Hopefully, I’ll be back to visiting everyone’s blogs by the weekend. I might visit a few here and there until I build up my momentum again. But I think I’m back in the saddle again!
On another note, I have a strange idea. I know several of my fellow paranormal romance authors also write erotica under another pen name. I’m kind of thinking about going in another direction. I’m thinking of writing Christian romances under my REAL name. I have a lot of friends at church that like to read Christian romances, especially those by Karen Kingsbury. I just thought of an idea for a Christian romance and it keeps picking at my brain saying “Write Me!”. The thing is, I’ve never been able to write two stories at the same time, and I don’t want to fall behind on my paranormal romances. So I’m thinking I can write the Christian romance during my lunch hours at work. That way I can separate it from what I’m writing at home. I’m not going to tell anyone what I’m doing (except my mom and my cover artist) until one day I’ll have a shiny new romance book to share with my church sisters. What do y’all think? Am I crazy? And I’m determined that mine won’t be as sappy as Karen Kingsbury’s. Because hers make everyone cry. LOL
lauralynnelliott.com 
Lauralynn, I LOVE your idea! I think you’d have a lot of fun with that!
I like the idea, too. And it’s all sneaky and stuff. Hahahahaha.
I know that it’s weighed on you that you feel you have to hide your paranormal work from your Christian friends, so if something’s knocking to be written that would appeal to that audience, that seems like absolutely something to pursue.
Kait, I think I’m going to give it a shot. I’ve found that it’s not a good idea to ignore that little “write me” voice.
By all means go for it! You won’t know until you try!
I think I will, Anya!
Sometimes we all need a break. Crazy? You? .. hehe. Not at all. Go for it.
Hi Ryan. I think my break really helped.
I actually started on the Christian romance story at lunch today. I wrote 579 words. I think this might just work.
Hooray on things picking up for you again! Seems to be a lot of that going around (thank goodness!).
And I’ve always been a big fan of using the same name for all your work. I definitely understand the draw of pen names, but I just really like to see more people embrace the idea that versatility is a thing to be admired and celebrated! I love an author who can write different things, and find it a little discouraging to discover that one book by an author is almost exactly like the last book by the same author, but with a few things tweaked. So I say go for it, rock it out, and continue being awesome.
Thanks L.S.! I’m glad things are picking up for both of us. 🙂
I would love to publish everything under the same pen name. In fact, I’m writing a horror story right now, which is different from paranormal romance, but not THAT far from it. Sadly, I have to keep my pen name and writing a secret from many of my friends who wouldn’t understand the paranormal aspect and wouldn’t approve of the sexual aspect of my books. Although my books aren’t graphic at all, the love scenes would be too much for some people I know. But I want to be able to write something that I can let everyone know about. I want to write something that ALL of my friends can read. And this Christian romance idea popped into my head about the same times I was thinking about this issue. So I’ll probably write the Christian romance under my real name. If I decide to use a pen name, it would be different from my current one.