Let’s call it “cocktail party conversation.”

When I tell people I’m a writer, there are a few responses I hear over and over and over.

Here’s one such statement: “Someday, I’m going to write a book.”

Here’s another: “What have you written?”

And a third: “Where have you been published?”

When someone tells me that they, too, would like to write, it is usually followed by a litany of excuses why they can’t get started. “I just don’t have time” tops the list.

That always makes me smile. But when the response is “I envy you for having the time to write,” I really want to bitch-slap them. I don’t, of course, but I soon disengage myself from further discussion.

For the record: No one has the time to write!

As for the second and third statements, I used to cringe and cower and feel somewhat like a fraud. For many years, the list of things I had written, and had published, was pitifully small, although steady.

For far too long, I, too, often talked about the book I was “going to write someday.”

That changed in 2011, when I finally sat my butt down at the keyboard and managed to whack out a complete 72,000 word cozy mystery. I was ecstatic! Until then, the longest thing I had written was about 1,200 words.

And then I went back to producing my tried-and-true short articles and stories.

It’s not like I didn’t have more books I wanted to write. Far from it! That first book was a springboard to a full series of six to eight titles, all with the same lovable characters, and I even had a rough idea of the storyline that might be in each one.

My excuse for not getting started with Book Two was that until I had an agent and/or editor and publisher, I couldn’t possibly continue with the series, because changes might need to be made to Book One, and those changes would have a domino effect throughout the rest of my writing.

Uh-huh. Lame, lame, lame. Even I could see that.

So today I’m announcing that Book Two in the series is complete at 71,000 words, and I’m feeling like a proud momma who just gave birth after eight months of hard (and sometimes fraught with some pretty enormous obstacles of life) labor. Nevertheless, Book Two is now done, done, done!

Still no agent, and/or editor and publisher for the series, but I’m thinking it will be easier to pitch a “two-books complete” idea than them taking a chance I could end up being one of those one-hit wonders who never produce a second song, if you get my drift.

In a couple weeks I’ll be attending the “Killer Nashville” conference, and I’m hoping exactly the right agent will be just waiting to snap me up. That’s the plan, and I’m sticking to it!