A quick pause for thought

It's funny, I always believedthat writing my first novel would be tough and any novels that followedwouldn't face the same rigour. But I'm at the stage right now of writing mythird novel and currently bumping along, writing scraps here or there, and notgetting in that space, where it becomes a compulsive behaviour to continuewriting the story formed in your imagination.It's tough when other areas ofyour life are facing challenges, as it can create a ripple effect on everythingelse, especially if those other areas of your life are not strong.I've decided to challenge myselfwith this novel and write something that isn't in the Crime genre. Right nowI'm describing it as a drama with a romantic twist. I've had the urge for awhile to write something with a heavy romantic theme, but have been afraid ofthe story turning into a pure romance novel. Of course there's nothing wrongwith romance novels, however, I believe that my writing mind would probablyending up giving romance novels a bad name.The main idea behind writing thistype of novel was to allow time to research my future books, which will includepolice procedural, however, as of now not too much research has been conducted.Once I feel secure that my story has enough drama along with the romanceaspect, I hope that will unlock me to dive into the research.My grand plan is to work onScreenplays during the edits of my work. This will allow me to continuewriting, but using a different tool to deliver it, which will also give me abreak from novels.When looking at the big pictureof what I want to achieve with my writing, it can be a little scary. Of coursethere's fear of what if I fail etc, which I try and convert into drive anddetermination, but sometimes that's not always possible and you are forced toponder the what ifs of the situation.The good news is that life changesso quickly. If you're in a place of challenge right now, it can always getbetter with time. Humour me for a moment and look back at the last five yearsof your life, I'm sure there's been achievements and challenges that wereovercome that you didn't expect was possible.I guess it all comes down to theold adage, "Take it one day at a time." That's not to say don't plan and dream,but perhaps focus on building great productive days and this will lead tosomething you could have never imagined.