I received a year planner from my family at Christmas. I've never been one to keep up with a planner. Sometime around this time each year, I realize I don't keep track of enough stuff to justify having one. There may be two or three points during the year when I think it might come in handy, but once those times have passed, I once again don't need to lug around yet another item.

Well this one is different. First of all it's a Moleskin (I think that's the name) so the quality and design is up to my snotty standards. Secondly -- and what has made all the difference -- I decided to use it solely to keep track of my writing progress each day.

And it has worked. Too well, possibly. I realized sometime last week that I had neglected the website in almost two months. For shame. I think there's enough time in my day to do both. I think the secret is keeping the website entries and the journal entries reasonably small.

I'll sit down, last thing each day, and write around three short sentences about what I edited, critiqued, wrote, outlined, whatever writing-related activity I accomplished. Then I'll write a reasonable goal for the following day. This gives me something specific to ruminate on over night. I know just what I need to write the next time I sit down to the keyboard.

Hilmer Gibb and His Honkin' Huge Bib is finished, the last half being critiqued last night. Outside of a comma or two and a couple words I omitted during a last-minute edit before the latest Barnes & Noble critique, it's ready to send out.

This work is technically my first full-length story ready for submissions. I'm excited about the accomplishment and even more excited about the reactions it's getting, but I'm feeling a little lost.

What is the best next step? I realize it will need illustrations, but how does one proceed? Is that something I arrange myself or do I allow a publisher to make that most critical choice for me. (Of course, that's vainly assuming I get it accepted by a publisher who wants to produce it as a book.)

When I started out writing, I never expected I'd be in this position, that of pushing my children's book. The story came out of nowhere and had to be written. I'm happy with the results but I'm terribly unprepared.

I'll keep you posted.

Hilmer Gibb and His Honkin' Huge Bib is my first foray into children's literature. It's a 20 something page story about a spaghetti and meatballs fanatic who orders more bib than he can imagine, that bib's curious disappearance and the wonderful things he finds during the bib's recovery.

I have to admit that I had to ask the advice of my fellow writers as to whether writing a children's book would qualify me as a legitimate author -- and with that I offer my apologies to children's authors who might read this.

Let me clarify...

Children's stories were never on my list of goals. In my thinking, a person who writes children's books is simply a different kind of person, a different kind of author. Not more or less, just different. I simply didn't want to take time out to write a story for kids when I saw myself building in a "more serious" direction.

But what is one to do when he has an idea for a story. A good idea too. One of those ideas that come around every now and then -- and always whenever one is NOT looking for them -- that the author MUST write immediately or the magic is gone.

So was the case what what I've come to call The Bib Story.

Tomorrow, part 2 of the story will go in front of our Wednesday night critique group.

Some walls are harder to break through than others, but one truth remains: all problems can be solved, must be solved in the writing. I can sit and ponder solutions to this or that aspect of my story or my character, but until I'm actually creating words, nothing can truly happen.

So often -- and it will probably come from one of those maniacs who write a story without the foggiest notion of what will happen in the story after they decide on a main character, a seat-of-the-pantser -- you'll hear that there is no story until the characters start "doing things." What does that even mean, I asked myself when I heard it first.

The moment you come to your first block, or wall or whatever you call the moment when you just stop because something doesn't fit or you can't figure out what's convincing, you'll be about as far away from understanding what that means as you'll ever be. The good news is you're also about as close to understanding that cryptic idea as you'll ever be.

The advice is simple and it's always the same: write and write fearlessly. Remember that not written words are wasted as long as you are practicing the best of your craft. If what you end up with is crap or still doesn't work, you still have come closer to an eventual solution. I believe firmly that there is no literary problem that cannot be solved.

That is not to say that you're writing in the right direction or that you have the right ingredients to solve the problem but writing will, at the very least, shed light on the shortcomings of your work. It will give you clues as to how to correct the problem that lies behind what you originally thought was the problem.

Confused? Me too.

Here's what I mean. I've been having a hell of a time writing a reunion scene between two men who haven't see each other in around 20 years. To compound the problem, the older of the two men is mortally ill. My first dilemma is to decided whether the long separation or the illness should be addressed first. I have never known a mortally ill person, have seldom been to a hospital and have never been estranged from someone for so long as in the situation I'm trying to convincingly portray. So...what do I do?

I write. Again, if it's crap, I sit on it a few days to 1] decide if it's actually crap, 2] if it is crap, determine why 3] write again with an eye on fixing that problem.