Remind me to not blog when I'm overworked, and distracted by the fifty some odd co-workers carrying on with industrial style maintenance behind me. Of course I'm typing this in those very conditions once again.

Like most of the authors that haven't been featured on the New York Times Best Seller List, I have to actually earn a living at something other than fitting words together. For me that means working on electrified light rail vehicles that move people around the city every day.

I routinely disregard best writing practices all the time by trying to squeeze it into my lunch break, which usually results in a few ugly looking paragraphs each day if I'm lucky. Later, when I go back and read the results I find myself gagging as I punch the delete key.

Today for lunch was the usual two yogurts, and dodging the inane suggestions of the crowd that likes to offer me story ideas on their way to reheating leftover pizza. I have more ideas than I do time to write them all down, and my ideas mesh well with my thinking process. That's not to say that a fraction of the plots tossed at me aren't good enough to write, but those don't have any connection to me.

I mean like today, I was offered a plot where robot ninjas hijacked a trainload of creampuffs. Meanwhile a picture that I had posted of a moss covered ruin (borrowed from another publishing site) was the prompting for the contest I am hosting for September. When that picture was joined by a preliminary sample cover from my artist, that didn't fit the character it was supposed to fit, I mentally named the picture, mixed it with the ruins photo, and laid out the beginnings of a plot that frankly may end up as my entry into the September challenge. The plot that sprang forth in my head had the feel of something that I could relate with well enough to do the story. Frankly the robot ninjas that were armed with chainsaws just didn't click into place for me.