I finished Last Child of Winter last week! Confetti is still flying around the house and I continue to nurse my celebratory bottle of wine in the evenings.
Now I get to take a peek at what I meant to have done this year and… have a mild panic attack about how little has been completed. Last Child of Winter was supposed to be completed back at the end of March? Sweet Bananas on Toast, how did we stretch it to July??
Well, that’s easy to explain.
And I suppose it’s time to fess up.
Those who have been following along will remember that I said “Life Happened” some time ago that derailed several things. Now that we have come to the other side of it, I will admit that I had a bit of a cancer scare. Long story short, my schedule was interrupted by a biopsy and then a surgery and my mind was just not in the right space to get more than 100-500 words done daily.
Which is significantly less than my 1k-3k normal workday.
So, my panic attack is short lived today because, quite frankly, I’m still alive to work and that’s good enough for me.
But how shall I spend the rest of this year?
So glad you asked!
This week I am building a book (ie: outlining / character sheets / charts) for the next project that I will begin next week. But I am ALSO going to take 2-3 days this week to write a short story for Nora.
It’s been stuck in my head so I want to do it while it’s there.
Nora and the Minotaur’s Husband will, hopefully , star in a Fantasy Anthology that I want to release in December. I have several fantasy short stories that have not found homes and, as you will recall, Torven is no longer available in paperback form because it is too short. So I will have it in the anthology so that people who don’t like digital versions can still read it.
These projects should last me until the beginning of October (new book / Fantasy Anthology) and then I will pick up Nora’s second book (tentatively titled Nora and the Autumn Duke) for editing straight through National Novel Writing Month in November. If this goes the way it normally does when I put an editing project in NaNo instead of a fresh novel, I will probably be picking up Last Child of Winter and doing its third round of edits straight through December.
Everything else I put on my plate for this year can simmer in the background until next year.
Because, hey, I’m alive. And barring any freak accidents, I should be alive next year too.
All that said, take time today to breathe and enjoy something. Life really is short and the minutes/hours/days that pass by will never come back.
P.S. Nora and the Werewolf Wedding comes out August 9th! Advanced reviews have been spectacular and I cannot wait for everyone to get to read this one!
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