February Stats

• “Umberto Scolari and the Red Clay of Siena,” complete, 3000 words
• “The Imperfect Otter Empire,” complete, 3200 words
• “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” in progress, ?? words
• “The Case of the Robber Bridegroom,” in progress (needs a redraft), 2391 words

• completed Ebook Design workshop
• one copyediting job
• attended weeklong Anthology Workshop after reading ~240 short stories

Wordcount was appallingly bad, but given how much reading I had to do, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. At the end of each day, between the stories and the copyediting, I felt glutted with words, and I wasn’t even reading for pleasure (although many of the stories were fabulous). I’m really happy to be getting back to that. And back to writing. Which brings me to…

March Goals

Overall, I’d like to get to a solid 3K words/day, except on admin days (of which this is one of two this week, because I’m still not home), the two travel days home, and the one “day off” I’m giving myself (a movie plus a concert). On those days, I’d like to shoot for 1K. I need to get my wordcount production up, and it’s time to get that start.

As for projects…

Novels:

• Ghosted: finish reading through, do some brainstorm, order the random scenes, and write 10-20K to patch it all together…and then get it out to the beta readers.
• Possessed, Undressed, and in a Mess—Sophie Mouette: review full manuscript, make any tweaks, and send to copyeditor
• Luanna’s book (which needs a title, dammit)—the next Sophie Mouette book: brainstorming with Teresa in preparation for writing the book in April.

Short Stories:

• redraft “The Case of the Robber Bridegroom”
• finish “Music, When Soft Voices Die”
• write story for Magical Motorcycles
• finish Nikki story
• write new fetish story
• read The Valdemar Companion in preparation for writing short story

Publishing/Other:

• continue to scheme two new projects I can’t talk about yet
• two copyediting jobs
• Lucky Bat Books work
• rebrand covers (mostly done) and interiors and then republish all of my SFF stories
• prep my mother’s book for copyediting
• learn how to upload to iBooks
• six-week online workshop on Writing With Depth

Words written: 21,000

I keep wanting to say that’s low, but the fact that I wrote during a two-week trip to take care of family (and had several 2k+ days during that trip) makes it a win, I think.

Stories completed: 4.5

• “Umberto Scolari and the Arno Diversion,” complete, 4400 words
• “The Scent of Amber and Vanilla,” complete, 5000 words
• “Ignite the Night,” complete, 6000 words
• “Photographic Evidence,” complete, 4600 words
• “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” in progress, 2724 words so far

Other

• 3 short stories submitted (not including the 4 listed above)
• 1 copyediting job completed
• 3 Lucky Bat clients corresponded with
• half of online Ebook Design workshop completed
• 4 covers designed (as part of the above-mentioned workshop)
• 2 Styx concerts (had to sell my tix to 2 others to pay for a cavity and cat füd)

I’m a little disappointed about not getting “Music, When Soft Voices Die” done in time for the anthology deadline, but I’m okay about it. Although I did put it off until the last minute, it ended up wanting to be more complex and longer than I expected, and I simply ran out of time. Last night I realized I could’ve hammered out a couple thousand more words and submitted it, but it wouldn’t have been the story I wanted to write, the story it had the potential to be. So I’ll finish it in February and submit it elsewhere.

I also realized that it’s more tiring writing short stories than the same number of words on a novel. With a novel, you’re working with many of the same characters each day, some of the same settings, etc. You already have some idea of the overall feel of the novel—conflicts, etc.

With short stories, you’re starting fresh each time (except in the case of my ongoing Renaissance mystery series with the same character, Umberto Scolari—but the settings change, as do the secondary characters and conflict). New characters, new setting (even if it’s a setting you’ve used before, you’re showing it through a new character’s POV and opinion), new plot, new conflict. New question of “What is this story about?”

There’s a level of fun about that, don’t get me wrong. A sense of adventure as you dive into the new. But there’s a small part of me that’s starting to get tired, that’s thinking “Oh no, another one?”

So I think once I finish the story that’s due Sunday (I have notes, but haven’t started it—it’s another Umberto mystery), the one that’s due next Sunday (which starts with the main character watching the otters at the SB Zoo, and she’s either lost her job or her partner or both, and after that I have no idea what’s going to happen*), and “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” I’m going to dive into one of the novellas I want to write. Two are started: The Master of Wildwood (a prequel to my popular gothic erotic short story “Return to Wildwood”) and On Her Lips (the second of three linked erotic romance novellas, following In Her Hands.).

So, with that in mind, February goals:

• 3 novellas (2 already in progress)
• 8 short stories (some already in progress)
• 1 copyediting job
• 1 weeklong workshop in Oregon, which includes 2 days driving each way
• 1 short visit to my sister and family in Pebble Beach to see my niece starring in a play (yay!)

There will also be Lucky Bat work and publishing stuff (once I finish the workshop, I’m-a gonna be busy!), but I don’t know how to quantify it right now.

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*Or, crap, maybe it’s in Scotland with shapeshifting otter faeries. Dammit!

I’m starting to feel a little wheee! again about all the projects on my plate right now, so what better than a blog post to get them all straight in my head?

• erotica story—finishing this one up for my non-public pen name; hopefully done tonight or tomorrow
• Ghosted (novel-in-progress)—doing a read-through and taking notes so I can finish the damn thing
• anthology story—I’ve been invited to pitch an idea for an anthology of stories set in a big-name author’s world. The pitch is due by December 1, so I’m currently re-reading some of the books to re-familiarize myself with the world. (I own, um, 13 books in the series. I don’t have time to re-read all of them…)
• Sexy in Your Stocking (holiday erotica collection of stories by me as Andrea Dale, my coauthor Teresa Noelle Roberts, and our joint author Sophie Mouette)—ebook is designed, cover is designed, need to design POD interior
• “Dyeing For Her” (Sophie Mouette short story)—cover is designed, ebook is designed, need to convert ebook and upload to various sites
• copyediting job—in progress; it’s short so I should have it finished tomorrow
• proofreading job—will start after the copyediting job is done; thankfully also short

There’s also the work I’m doing for Lucky Bat Books, which obviously I can’t discuss in detail here. Right now I have two potential clients, and I’m still reading through all the information I need to do the job and familiarizing myself with the way they do things. They are being very patient with me as I ask a million questions.

And let’s not talk about the two other novels I need to finish, the one I need to redraft, and the three novellas I want to write…ideally by the end of the year….

Wheeee!