I'm sitting in Blue Stone Cafe, my hand-scribbled notes all across my draft of "The Unintended Stray." I've been pondering a problem: On the first page is a locksmith. How much should I describe the locksmith? Should I name him? Does it have to be a him? I've come up with an entire back story for this locksmith, who appears only on the first page. Since that troubled me, I wondered if I should work the locksmith into the book more.

Oh, the things I will do to waste time. I have many, many pages of work ahead of me, some significant changes, and I'm fiddling around with such a tiny detail. Yes, I do want my writing to be detailed and carefully thought out, but it is important to not neglect the big picture in the process.

On movie front, "Model Rules" has won the Northwest Emerging Artist Award at the Salem Film Festival.