Holidays and Resolutions

With the holidays in reach, I'm enjoying a couple quiet days in my chair with my laptop. Presents are wrapped and waiting, cookies baked, house cleaned, groceries purchased, yep, I'm ready to go. And so I'm relaxing.

Because that's my one word for 2016: Relax

I don't even recall what my one word resolution was for 2015. It should have been: Survive. Because I'm insane, I chose: Write. (because 2014 failed at that word) This was a ludicrous idea considering I was still building the damn house and then there was the moving and finishing and unpacking. Ugh. If I could twist that word into: Publish, then I will say that I succeeded. Though, I did write too, but not until November. Hey, the last two months totally count for the full year, right? Sure they do.

This year I hope to spend more time in this chair writing with my feet up - not being stressed out, and exhausted. I'm sure there will still be stress, my oldest plans to be heading off to college, the younger is a teenage girl. Enough said.

Does it look and feel like Christmas by you? We're having the best winter weather ever. I'm on the lakeshore in West Michigan and should be under a couple of feet of snow by now, trudging about in my winter boots and weighed down by thick winter coat, gloves, scarves and a hat, brushing off my car at every errand stop while freezing my butt off. Instead, I wore my sandals last week and drove with my window down. Okay, this is Michigan, and it was 50 degrees and sunny, That's sandal weather. Sure, it's been rainy, but I don't have to shovel rain or pay the plow guy to do the driveway. This is awesome compared the to the last couple years of winter hell. And it totally figures that we'd have a warmer winter when I'm not frantically trying to finish a building a house during snowstorms or moving in the middle of record cold temperatures. Because that's how things work.

But I'm relaxing so it's all good.

Fun link for the week:
Our final thoughts on NaNoWriMo 2015 are now live on Lectito. In which I learn two of the other participants planned way the hell more than I did, but we all still made it to 50K.

Guests, Gardening, and Getting prepared

August is here already. That means NaNoWriMo preparation has begun.

Pfft, Prepare? Me? Ha. I mean for my region. (Though I will admit, champion pantser that I am, I'll be working on a YA novel I recently started editing that I gave up on during NaNo years ago. It still needs a middle and and end. And I know where it's going now. Egads, does that mean I've planned for once?)

I've created this year's sticker, the word count chart, a character creation game for the kick off party, sorted give away prizes and silent auction items. I've even considered doing a couple small crafty projects. I haven't had time for those in a while, so I'm rather excited to get my hands covered in glue and paint.

While I occasionally remember to stalk my submissions, I'm keeping busy with projects around the house. Now that we're all settled in, there's all the little things, like sealing the grout for all the floor tile, caulking the guest room tub, finding homes for the few things left in boxes, finishing up the stone work on the front of the house, installing the railing on the deck, and landscaping. That last one is my favorite. I've been waiting anxiously. Since last fall. I'm really sick of waiting. Today, the last load of top soil arrived, so barring rain, I'll be spending my weekend playing in the dirt.

As far as writing, I haven't started anything new lately. I'm waiting on edits on three shorts and a novel, all of which could arrive in my inbox anytime and two of them will require a quick turnaround. Best to save my limited writing time for when I really need it and enjoy expending my creative energy on other pursuits for just a little while.

July passed by in a blur of fun. We had a great time hosting our Spanish guest, who gave us the perfect excuse to visit places around town we hadn't been to in years. Our daughter got to have a month of mostly vacation that we would have otherwise worked through and maybe done one or two things as time allowed. Funny how having a stranger in your house makes you spend so much more time together as a family, and I was surprised how attached we got to her in the few weeks she was here. Sending her off wasn't easy, but we would definitely host another student next year if asked.

For now, I'll leave you with this week's Author's Answer: What scenes do you find difficult to write?

A Moving Post

After much stress, long years of waiting, and an extremely long year of working my butt off (or at least several pounds of it), I'm able to write this post from my new writing room. We're not quite all moved in yet, but the majority of boxes are a cleared away and most of our things have found a new home.

Bobblehead Scorpius is happily posted at his new station and agreeing away as I type.
"Yes, yes, those are good words. Keep typing. Yes, there you go."

The desk that has been sitting unassembled in my garage for over a year now has finally been assembled and stained. Many of the posters I've been collecting for seven years have been framed and hung. All the little trinkets that used to be piled on or around my previous writing desk have found homes on my new bookshelves.

My TBR pile overflowed from the two stacks beside my bed to a short stack on my writing desk. I suppose that means I need to make more time for reading as well as writing because any further stacks will have to go on the floor down here.

I have a comfy chair for my desk, but not the lounging chair that I've been searching for that will eventually go in the corner. I seem to do better with marathon writing sessions when I can put my feet up and give my back a break.

All my hard cover books now reside on the big hallway bookshelf on the main level, but the paperbacks keep me company down here.

The silver cement floor I worked on late into one evening is nice and warm with our radiant heating. I had a rug down here for a day, but decided I liked the patterns on the floor better.

Now that I have my calming and quiet space all ready to go, it's time for some writing!

The Estate of Waiting

We've waited to build for years. As in we're eight years behind when we'd originally planned to start. Then finally the planets aligned. I've become quite practiced at waiting, not that I enjoy doing it, but it seems to happen a lot. Hence the name of my new home.

While I'm busy waiting to hear back on submissions - I just added another ball to my submission juggling act last night - I figured I'd share progress on the house project.

This is what the site looked like last fall.

This is what a small portion of the site looked like at the beginning of April. My dog loved the freshly turned sand. He couldn't get enough of running on it. It certainly beats running on snow, so I can't blame him for celebrating the thaw, though I let him do the running for both of us.

And then we have the hole. And lots of sand. We did come across someone's trash pit, which contained a lot of broken glass (mostly jars of Peanut Crunch and Heinz 57) and one neat old perfume-type bottle that wasn't broken.

The basement walls were installed in one day. This sounds really speedy and productive but then there was two week delay with excavation issues and the geothermal crew and me spending an entire weekend out there leveling the basement dirt and digging footings to make things right.

Which brings us to where things are currently. The garage is going up today and the second story goes up next week. Can't wait to see it all framed in. Of course, that means more nights and weekends on site for me because that's where the work we're planning to do ourselves starts. 

Until then, I'll do some more editing, submitting and...waiting. 

A to Z Zombie

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Zombie is what I usually feel like at the end of the day. This is why night writing is a thing of the past for me. When I had a 9-5 job that I did my time at each day and then went home to dinner and happy play time, being productive at night was full of awesome. Then came kids and after school activities and customer support for my business and daily production that often forgets what the day in daily means.
Take last night for instance, my husband was trying to help with a job and told me a measurement three times and I still couldn't retain the knowledge for more than 3 seconds. Cue the drooling zombie sounds. Must write information down. Zombie doesn't understand pen. Zombie try pencil. Gah. Numbers are hard.

I also seem to be extra zombie at the end of this month. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Raise your brains, fellow zombies (okay, not your brains, some fresh ones from someone else). We've come a long way, like through a whole alphabet in a month. We've stumbled around blogs we've never been to before. We've found kindred souls and followed them. Now lets nom on those brains, kick back and relax. After all, tomorrow is May and that means its short story month. I'll need all the brain power I can get!
Braaaiiiiiins

A to Z Yawn

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Yawn: is what I find myself doing any time I find to sit in one place for more than five minutes. I used to be good at sleep. Loved sleep. Would rather sleep than be awake. And the dreams, oh they were so much fun. I'd ponder plots and characters in my half-sleep between dreams, coming up with all sorts of things to throw at them during my waking hours.

Now I wake up at 6am. I don't have to. I don't want to. But my brain has turned on and is pelting me with all the things I didn't finished yesterday and what I need to do that day. And this sudden, heart pounding moment of anxiety is usually right after dreaming that I'd been working on a job that I'd totally forgot about or that went all wrong and the customer needs it right away. It's utterly restful, I tell you. Not. There's too much going on in that mess of a brain to focus on plots or characters, which is really frustrating for someone who used to cherish the sleepy time we shared together.


Perhaps, in about twenty-some years, when I retire, sleep and I will kiss and makeup. I look forward to that day.

A to Z Unaccountable

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Unaccountable for my time. There's a reason I don't work for someone else anymore. I don't like being held to a schedule, each minute accounted for, someone watching over my shoulder. Having to do something every day, or at the same time every day drives me nuts. I need the freedom do get it done as I see fit, which is almost always on time or early if I'm left to my own devices. Put rules on me and I'll drag my feet and procrastinate with the best of them. Having to write a blog post every day is not too confining and it's at least something I choose to do but it still grates at me each day that I need to get that done.

A to Z People

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

People that I live with seem to think I should actually spend time with them. I know, right?
They want me to buy groceries and cook food for them, nag them about homework, practicing instruments, brushing their teeth, cleaning their rooms and doing their laundry. They love when I nag them. I mean, they must or they'd just do those things so I wouldn't have the opportunity to nag.

My husband wants me sit on the same couch without a laptop and focus on the same tv show or movie now and then. He might even want me to go with him and hang out with friends away from home.

Even the hairy little four-legged person who lives here wants my constant attention (squirrel!) and to work his hairs down (outside!) in between every (squirrel!!!!) key (OMG can't you see the squirrel?) on (you stupid human, I must chase it! Let me out!) my keyboard. (It's invading my yard! The excitement killing me! Please. Let. Me. Out.) I swear that's his secret mission in life.

We have a lot of squirrels in the yard. All. Day. Long.

A to Z Outside

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Outside is where I like to be in the spring. My many flowerbeds cry out for attention. The garden begs to be planted. The raspberry plants need to be thinned and the strawberries weeded. The dog wants to run around. The miles of mole tracks need to be stomped down and the mouse runs have to be filled. Thatch needs to be raked out of the grass and mountains of sticks need to be picked up before the first mowing can take place. Mulch must be spread so weeding doesn't take over my summer. Oh, so much to do and here I sit with my laptop, looking out the window, getting exhausted just thinking of all the things I need to do.

A to Z Nose

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Nose is dripping. Allergy season is just beginning. I seem to be allergic to spring summer and fall. Which sucks because I'm not a fan of winter...other than its the one season that I can breath freely.

I love to work outside in my yard, the flowers, the garden, playing with the dog. However, that means I have puffy eyes and a constantly running nose and a stuffy head. Somedays, when the pollen is really high, I can hardly breathe at all and I have to rely on my inhaler. Those days are so much fun. And yes, I take allergy medication. The nice ads on tv with all the allergy suffers gleefully playing in their yards after taking their one pill a day each day of their allergy season lie. That stuff does nothing for me. Unfortunately the stuff that does work, knocks me out for about an hour after taking it, but after a nice nap, I can breathe for eight hours without a box of tissues nearby.

Time to stock up on the allergy meds!

A to Z Labor

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Labor is what I do most of day/evening. Not really a labor of love (that would be writing), and not giving birth (done that twice and, while I dearly love them, they are the source of countless interruptions), but working. But I have way too many words to use for W so we're going with this today.

I'm self employed, which seems like it should be an awesome thing, and sometimes it is. For the most part though, I never leave work. There's a big difference between clocking out at 5pm and having the rest of night to yourself and looking at the clock at 5pm, knowing you still have so much to do so maybe you'll get a few more things done while you make dinner and then answer some emails while the kids to homework, and check orders one more time before bed so you know what's in store for the next morning.

Business is good, but can also be overwhelming when customers know where you live and decide to stop over without warning on the weekend, the evening, or early morning hours to go over projects. Please don't do this. Self employed people who work at home actually would like to be at home without working just like you do. At least call first.

My favorite (heavy sarcasm) was a customer who came over to go over a job on a Saturday afternoon, interrupting me mid-rototilling my garden. Also a big favorite: interrupting exercise time - I love answering the door in sweaty workout clothes.

This could be a very long and ranting post, but we'll stop here.

A to Z Increase

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Increase. While it could be said that the point of this challenge is to get you motivated to blog more regularly, it's also about increasing the number of followers you have. That's wonderful and I'm all for it, but that requires visiting many blogs a day to read their posts and comment and eventually, if you really like the blog, follow it.



I met some fun bloggers last year and enjoyed their posts during the challenge and after, but I don't have much time this year for seeking out new blogs to visit on the very long list (more on that in tomorrow's post). I do thank you for taking the time to stop by, knowing full well how valuable that time is. I'm also glad to see some returning visitors from last year. It's been great reconnecting with you again!

A to Z Hurried

Welcome to the 2014  A to Z Challenge. My theme for this year is why I shouldn't be participating. Thank you to David for writing the post that got the voices in my head working against me.

Hurried. Yes, these posts are meant to generally be short since we're also spending time visiting our fellow bloggers and no one wants to read through a four screen-long post, but it's hard finding enough meat to fill a post without it coming off as total fluff when you just don't have time. It hardly seems fair to those who put in the time to write a meaningful post, musing on the letter of the day in their chosen theme.

Last year I spent a good amount of time pouring over my entire body of work to find characters with names beginning with the letter for each day. This year, something that ambitious is not possible. Heck, I'm lucky if I find time to have lunch most days. Speaking of which, I need to get back to work and the hundred other things I need to do yet today.

April A to Z Challenge

I was totally on board with not participating in the April A to Z Challenge this year. Wasn't gonna do it. No sir. Didn't have the time or ambition and had other things I really need to focus on, namely the novel I'm cleaning up...that needs a new name.

But like a story idea that won't shut the hell up, the idea of participating in the blogging challenge using the theme of why I'm not participating keeps niggling at me. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. The entries will be short. I totally admit that I'm writing them all ahead of time, because I really am too busy to do this everyday. However, its a challenge, and I have a hard time saying no to those, especially when I've done them before.

So onward we charge into April and twenty-six reasons why I hadn't planned on participating this year.

If you would like to sign up, there are 1800+ blogs out there waiting for you to join them.

The Waiting

Insert house here. If only it were that easy.

Sounds like a gripping suspense novel, doesn't it? Sadly, it's my life right now. Waiting to receive any good news on submissions. Waiting for what was more likely going to be rejections on submissions. Waiting to get elevations on our house plans from the architect. Waiting to get quotes to see if this house is even feasible with our budget
...after we finally get the elevations.

I got sick of waiting over the weekend and spent most of it over at the property, clearing out stumps and dead shrubs. This involved a lot of walking back and forth from the wood pile to where I was working, using the claw end of a hammer as a pick axe and lots of swinging of the machete. Now I'm waiting for my muscles to stop aching and the itch to stop from the poison ivy I encountered.

While I'm doing all this waiting, I decided last night, at around 9pm, to do some book page folding. It's a new crafty thing for me. There are boxes of books in my garage that the resale shop didn't want. They're just waiting for me to having another garage sale before eventually becoming a charitable donation.

Now I'm waiting for this work day to be over so I can get back to some folding fun.

It's Q & A time

Thanks to the lovely Sidonie Helena for nominating me for the Liebster Award. We connected a couple months ago during the April A to Z challenge. Whew, that was a busy month! So was May, but now that short story month over, I finally have a chance to graciously accept my shiny award and join the fun.

What fun you say? Well, it seems that this reward entails me stating 11 facts about myself. Let's start there.

1. I haven't had a chance to color my hair in months. It's currently a rainbow of brown, blond and faded magenta.
2. Notice how I didn't call it pink? No sir, I'm not a fan of pink.
3. Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons. I love how they smell.
4. I used to be really good at sleeping. I miss that.
5. I write exclusively in MS word.
6. I've reached a place in life where I realize more stuff is just more stuff I have to clean, display, store, and move around. Less stuff is good.
7. I have two new dime-sized angel fish. (Two large palm-sized ones recently died and I missed them.)
8. A Jack Russel mix named Toby keeps me company during the day.
9. When not talking to my discarded characters, I resort to talking to myself. Working at home alone has its privileges.
10. My favorite flower is the Iris.
11. My wardrobe is mostly gray. It used to be mostly black. I'm fashionably fading.

Now I must answer 11 questions posed by Sidonie.

1.What is one thing that you can not live without?
Gum. Specifically Trident bubblegum, though I also like cinnamon and mint.

2.What was your least favorite subject in school?
Math. We have calculators for a reason.

3.Do you prefer talking over the phone or face to face?
Phone. Though, even better, email. Unless we're really chatty, then the phone is easier.

4.What is the last dream that you remember?
I'd have to have a good night of sleep to actually answer that one. Most of the time I'm dreaming about working.

5.Who is the most famous person you have met?
The only person I've actively sought out was Jacqueline Carey at a local book signing. She was very tolerant of our small gang of giddy fans asking writerly questions.

6.Where did you grow up?
Same place I live now, except about four minutes away. I'm comfortable here.

7.If you could live anywhere on earth, where would you live?
About five minutes from here on the property I've been paying on for six years. Did I mention I'm comfortable here?

8.What was the last thing you bought?
Oranges for the red-bellied woodpeckers and orioles

9.Your favorite film is...?
The Princess Bride.

10.Apple or PC?
PC.

11.Do you even like questionnaires? 
Sure. They are much easier to answer than to come up with my own questions and answers.

At this point, I'm supposed to nominate 11 other bloggers. But you know I don't play by the rules. Mwahahaa! I mass nominate all of you! If you're interested, here are your questions:

1. What is your favorite color of socks?
2. What is your current creative project?
3. Dogs or Cats?
4. Beer or Wine?
5. Where is your favorite place to relax?
6. What is the last book you read?
7. What was the last show you watched on TV?
8. Where is your favorite place to walk barefoot?
9. What is your favorite flower?
10. What is the last movie you saw in a theatre?
11. Are you a fan of organization or chaos?

Now go forth and answer.

Closing thoughts on the April A to Z Challenge

I've already launched into A Story A Day In May, but thought I'd pause my short story frenzy (aka: extreme headdesking as I try to pull something together in a day with very little time to write), for a little retrospective.

Taking a tour through a smattering of my characters served to light the fires of want. I want to work on these stories and play with these characters again. Some were from published works and some from works in submission right now, but others have been languishing on my hard drive for years. How unfair of me. Of course, they're going to be put off for another month while I bring some new characters into the world, but I do want to get back to them sometime soon before those fires turn back into embers.

In visiting some of my A to Z neighbors, I found some fun new blogs to follow. Yes, they're all writers. Surprise! As much as I tried to expand my horizons...well, I didn't.

A big thank you to those of you who came back day after day with comments. I love comments. They make me get excited to check my email. It's not so exciting to check it when you're generally just waiting for rejections to come in. Not that this prevents me from obsessively checking it. It's just nice to get some positive things in there too. So thank you for that.

What surprised me most was how many people dropped out throughout the month. I moved almost a hundred places on the list. A big cheer to all my blog neighbors who snuck up through the ranks with me. None of the blogs I'd been visiting dropped out. Virtual high fives all around!

The feature I enjoyed most was the category listings on blogs. It made it much easier in my limited time to hunt down blogs that had a possibility of being something I'd find interesting. While I did regularly visit several of my blog neighbors who were not writing oriented, those who reciprocated visits (both neighbors and otherwise) were mostly in the same category. In that regard, I wonder if it would be even more effective for those, like me, who are in specific category to have category lists rather than one giant one with everyone together. I admit that after the first week, (other than returning comments) I skimmed the big list and sought out only those with my category tag. I probably would have visited more of my category if they were all in one easy to access place.

I would like to do the challenge again next year. Obviously I will need a new theme. I can't very well share another twenty-six characters who just happen to have names starting with every letter of the alphabet. It would be intentional this time and that just sucks the fun out of it. Good thing I have a year to come up with something. The ideas are already forming.

Getting Crafty: Book Page Roses

You gave me a dozen roses and I'd be happy. But they die. Pretty quickly. And, well, while I appreciate the sentiment, sometimes thinking outside the box is even more appreciated.

So when I saw these, I wasn't about to wait around for someone to make me some. Hell no. I'll give myself some roses thank you very much.

More specifically, I made myself some roses out of book pages. Double win. If you guessed this was yet another excuse to tear into my already torn and worn dictionary, you'd be right. I also used Henry the Eighth because that dictionary isn't the only one sitting on my craft pile.

So how does one go about making book page roses? Well you get yourself an old tattered book or two (the kind you'd otherwise throw out, not the valuable vintage sort) - one with lightweight pages and one with a little heavier pages. Any pages that have colored or worn edges are best. Yes, you could paint the edges, but I like the natural look.

Official supply list:
Tacky glue
Brush
1/8 wooden dowel that is longer than your pages
Book pages you never plan to read again

1. To make the stems: Take full book pages and apply glue to the outside edge. Roll using the dowel and smooth the glued edge. Pull out the dowel, and hey, you've got a stem. Lightweight pages work best for this as they are easier to roll this tight.




2. Cut a 1.5 x length of book page strip and fold over one corner. Glue this onto the stem and then wrap, pleating the paper a couple times to create interest. This makes the center of your rose.




To fill this giant gap between pictures, I'll tell you that once I had the process down, each rose took about five minutes to make.










3. Cut a selection of petals. For the heavier book pages, I made the petals roughly two inches long by about 1.5 inches tall. For the thinner pages, I made the strips 5 inches long because I could pleat them a I wound them around the center section.

4. Start with a heavier page petal. Varying the paper weight adds some substance and interest to the petals. My pages were also slightly different colors, with the heavier one being a darker page with a red edge, though not all of the petals came from the edges of the page. Manually pleat the heavy page petals. These can be done all at once or as you go.

5. You will need to hold the heavier page petals in place for a few seconds until the glue sets a little. Then follow that petal with a lighter weight one. Sprinkle the heavy pages throughout. I used three to four per rose. The heavier pages are bulkier so keep that in mind when working around the underside of your rose or it will end up with a huge base.


6. Keep adding petals all around, making sure to vary the length of the petals to keep the rose round and somewhat natural looking. You know, as natural as a rose made of book pages can be. Overlapping the petals an inch or so also helps keep them looking like petals.



7. Once you have the desired amount of petals pinch down the bottom against the stem. Cut a 1 inch by 5 inch strip of lightweight paper and wrap it around the underside of your rose to make the base. This serves to clean up the underside a little and transition the clump of petals into the stem.



8.  Cut a couple leaf shaped bits. I used one or two per stem and placed them roughly two inches below the rose. Glue the leaf onto the stem.

There you go. Now go wash all that glue off your hands and enjoy your roses.





My bouquet is sitting in a vase on my writing desk. The best part...they'll never wilt. Also, if I ever need a word beginning with B or C (as that's where I am in my dictionary), I can simply consult my roses for inspiration.

April is looking blogtacular

In an effort to be more on top of blog posts this year, I had a crazy moment (if you believe that was really just a moment, you don't know me very well) and signed up for the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I hope to be busy revising a novel during April as my Camp NaNo effort so this means I'm going to be extra busy writing. But what the hell, I like writing and I'm all about me this year.

To get back to my long neglected host of discarded darlings, my theme will be Characters. Specifically, my characters and not just the discarded ones. I'm pretty sure I have enough to cover the entire alphabet. I'm also pretty sure at least one of them will be force feeding me those words at some point in April.

Until then, I have some brain wracking to do. On further thought, I'm should also probably brush up on some self defense tactics.

2013 Bucket List Challenge Blog Hop

What will you cross off your Bucket List in 2013? 

First off, thank you to Dana Sitar for hosting this blog hop. Check out her book, A Writer's Bucket List, available starting today.

This Blog Hop Challenge is to make a list of my goals for the year. Now they'll be out here for all see. Bring on the guilt monkeys. 

Part of my focus on me resolution involves making more time for writing and not frying my creative brain at work so I have nothing left when I sit down to write. I don't need writing disaster like NaNo Novel 2012. No sir, I really don't. That was depressing.

So how about something more uplifting? Like some things I'd like to accomplish this year?

1. Keep Trust bouncing around in queryland. No more downtime for that one. It's had it's years of rewrites and edits. It needs to move out now. It is currently out and I have a whole list of places to send it so no excuses for this one. Unless it finds a home. I suppose I should somewhat rephrase this goal rather than be utterly pessimistic....keep it bouncing around until it finds a home or I decide to make a home for it.

2. Get A Broken Race out in queryland. I've put off getting submission materials put together for that one for a good six months now for lack of time and motivation. Apparently this finished novel and the list of presses I'd like to send it to aren't going to magically connect on their own.

3. Get at least two more short stories published. I've got two out in submissions right now. If they both find a home, I can cross that off my list and focus on #4 and #5.

4. Revise at least two short stories that have been languishing on my hard drive so they can join the others in submissions. I've already started on one, but that start consists of opening the file, staring at the cursor and getting frozen on the thought that I might screw it up worse if I start messing with it. Time take deep breaths and get on with it. There's always the back up file if I manage to suck all the magic out of the words.

5. And last on my list: Revise and FINISH one of the darn novels that's just sitting there doing nothing but glare at me for years. I've got Camp NaNo in April or November NaNo to conquer this if I don't manage to find the time elsewhere.

These are all attainable goals. I can do this. Deep breaths.

What's on your bucket list for 2013?