Vacationing

Hello, my darlings!

I missed last week's post due to some extreme craziness at the Day Job, on top of the expected craziness incumbent with trying to get them all prepared for my absence, since I'm on vacation with the family this week.

But since I neglected you last week, I couldn't let it go this week! So here I am, at a stool in my mother-in-law's kitchen, trying to keep the kids quiet while she and the Hubs are sleeping, and writing to you, my favorite readers!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas! (Or whatever your favorite winter solstice holiday is. I'm not picky.)

I brought my iPad with me on vacation, and all the stories I'm currently working on, but there's the hustle and bustle of trying to get around to visiting with as much of the Hubs' extended family as possible and the kids staying up late and trying not to make anymore impact on people's spaces and routines than we have to... And all that leaves me really wiped out at the end of the day and not inclined to write. Heck, most nights, I've even been too tired to read, and I bought some really fun-sounding stories to fill up my spare time with!

We fly home on Friday, and then there's Christmas with my family and New Year's with friends, and then we're back to the regular routine by Tuesday...

So in the meantime: leave me a story prompt to help me get back into the swing, tell me what you did for your holidays (were you naughty?), and tell me what kind of New Year's Resolutions you're going to make, if any!

Stupid Awesomeness.

Argh. I was about a third of the way through my review/edit of Foxfur this past week when I thought, "Hey, the motivation for [action X] is really shaky and not very well explained. What if there was another force behind it? Like, an [antagonist B], working behind the scenes, who wants [motivation Y]! That would add another 15,000 words to the story, easy, and it would explain [action X] better, and it would let [protagonist B] actually do something big and useful, and then [antagonist B] could turn up in the sequel I've been head-working!"

Awesome!

The only downside is that, even setting aside my lackluster writing performance lately, there's no way I can get all that done before the end of the year. I'll be taking my iPad with me on our holiday trip to visit the Hubs' family, but I'm not expecting to have much time for writing while I'm there -- there maybe one or two quiet evenings, but mostly I expect to be too busy and (congruently) too tired to write.

And then when we get back, I'll be a) exhausted, and b) prepping for the combination Christmas/New Year's celebration with my family and our friends.

So I've got approximately one week before the "end" of the year, writing-wise. And given the way I've been turning into a pumpkin promptly at 10:30 lately, I just don't see managing another 15,000 words, minimum, in that time.

At least this isn't a story on contract, so it's not like I'm missing anyone's deadline but my own. And I'd have been right on target with it, too, if I hadn't had that Awesome Idea.

Last night, reading through the action climax (as opposed to the romantic climax, which follows it) (yes, my inner 14-year-old boy is giggling at the multiple climaxes) it was tempting to just say screw it, skip the Awesome Idea, and keep the story as-is, just so I can be done with it. Lynn and I have been talking about rewriting a story we wrote together about nine years ago, now that we're both published and have a better idea of what we're doing, and so ideas are pinging around in my head for how to approach that project. And I've had an anthology idea I want to consider and then pitch. And there's all the other projects and ideas I've got notes for, just waiting...

But it is an Awesome Idea, it will solve some problems and open some new doors, and I'm not on deadline, here. So I'll probably hold onto it. Wanting to dump it just to finish the story is stupid, it's just exhaustion talking. Once the holidays are through and I'm able to get back on a decent schedule, it should come a lot easier. So I'm thinking end of January, maybe mid-February, now? Heh. Of course. Because early spring is when I always submit my longer stuff.

Making It Happen

We're well into the insanity of the holidays, and it's taking a toll on my writing time. Last weekend, it seemed we had an Event of some sort going at every single minute -- and for those few minutes that weren't Events, I was trying to squeeze in some shopping or wrapping.

I have managed to add a solid 1500 words to Foxfur in the past week or so, though -- a pitiful word count, but I've only managed to get about a quarter of the way through. Knowing that I have at least one scene to add and plenty more fluffing and expanding to do makes me think I can get this to that 50,000 word limit without too much trouble.

And I think the worst of the craziness is actually done for the next couple of weeks. We still have Events on the calendar, but I'm almost done with the shopping and the crafting and the wrapping, so I think I can take a few deep breaths and try to get back into this review. My goal is still to have it ready for my betas by the new year. (Which would have me submitting to the publisher probably around early February? That seems to be my favorite time of year to toss things over the fence.)

One way or another, I'm going to make this happen.

Oh, and! It looks like "Assumption of Desire" is tentatively scheduled for release in March! I'll offer up more details when I have them, I promise!