A couple of my characters dropped by...

I felt a hand roughly shaking me awake.
My eyes stayed closed but whoever was shaking me wasn't fooled.
"Dude," the voice said, "come on, get out of bed and go downstairs, get a cup of coffee and post something new on your blog."
I opened my eyes to find Quinn Bowman staring down at me.
"But I'm tired," I complained.
"Yeah, well, we're all tired," Quinn said.
"Mostly, though, we're tired of hanging around waiting for you to write something new on your blog. It's been like a month since you did."
I sighed, got out of bed and stretched.
"I haven't really had anything to say," I mumbled.
"Whatever," he said. "I'll put the coffee on."
Ten minutes later I came down the stairs from my 2-story apartment to find Quinn - a photographer from my mystery 'Corpus Delectable' - and Mick Church - a reporter from 'Jacks or Better' - standing in the kitchen.
"So," Mick said, "You're finally up. Well, that's something I guess."
"Why are you guys here?" I asked as I poured a cup of coffee. "Don't you have something better to do?"
Mick sighed.
"That's just it, we do have something better to do but we've had to drop everything and come here to tell you we're, well, a little annoyed that you haven't posted anything on your blog for weeks."
"Not cool dude," Quinn added.
"So not cool that Marcy Pantano, Dana Redwing and Mel Palazzo were ready to come over here and slap you silly," Mick said. "We told them we'd stop by instead."
Marcy, Dana and Mel are strong female characters from some of my books so I was actually glad that Quinn and Mick had stopped by instead of them. Fictional or not, you really don't want a trio of angry women in your bedroom in the early morning hours.
"So why are you guys so concerned that I haven't posted anything on my blog in awhile?" I asked.
Mick sighed.
"Because," he said, "we're worried that the fact you aren't updating your blog regularly means you're getting burned out."
"Burned out? Me? Come on, now that I'm retired from journalism I get to write what I want, when I want. How could I possibly be getting burned out?" I asked.
"That's just it," Quinn said. "You used to write for 10 or 12 hours a day, sometimes longer, but in the past few weeks that's dropped off to four or five hours a day and some days you don't write at all."
Mick nodded.
"Ever since you went back to the States for a week in early February you've been pretty slow off the mark. At first we put that down to jet lag because, well, you're old," he said.
"But now..." his voice trailed off.
"Now we're worried," Quinn said.
I drank some coffee and then refilled my cup.
"Well I wouldn't say that I'm burned out," I said defensively. "It's just that I'm having some trouble with some plot points and some narrative."
Quinn shook his head.
"Nope, you might try to convince yourself of that but you forget that we live inside your head dude," he said. "We know that you've been spending way too much time on Twitter and other social media platforms trying to do some marketing instead of writing."
"Well..." I said before Mick interrupted me.
"Look, we know marketing is important," he said. "Hell, we've got things to say and we can't do that if nobody reads us."
He sipped his coffee, decided it was too cold, and popped his cup into the microwave to warm it up.
"But Mike, you're a writer. Not a marketing agent, not someone who does public relations for a living. There are people who do those things every day and they're good at it so let them handle it. If you're fiddling around on Twitter and Instagram and all those other platforms you're not telling stories."
He shook his head.
"You gotta get back to what's really important in your life and that's writing," he added.
I didn't want to but I had to admit - if only to myself - that he was right.
"Besides," Quinn said, "Tweeting is a lot easier than coming up with a decent plot and posting pictures of your travels is a lot easier than writing dialogue. It's easy to fall into that trap instead of doing some real work."
I bowed my head.
"You're right," I said - well, mumbled really. "I need to snap out of this and get back to work."
"You'd better," Mick said with a smile. "Siobhan Noguerra has been waiting for weeks now for you to finish her novel and, I gotta tell you, she's been going to the gym every day and she's getting really strong. Not only that, she and her dad have been at the gun range so..."
Siobhan isn't someone I really want to engage in hand-to-hand combat or a firefight... she's done three tours in Afghanistan as an Army MP and she's tough... probably even tougher now after weeks in a gym.
I swallowed the rest of my coffee.
"Okay guys, you've made your point. I'll just wash these cups and..."
"I'll wash them, Quinn will dry them and we'll brew you another pot of coffee," Mick said.
"Your only job today is to write and then write some more," he added.
"I might get hungry..." I said.
"Then Mel will bring over some lasagna later," Mick said.
"Now you, go write," Quinn said. "If I don't hear you tapping some keys I swear I'll call Marcy and, believe me, you don't want that."
I nodded.
"You're right," I said as I walked into my makeshift office.
I booted up my laptop and started writing...
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KCABGK