naomi_jay | State of the Nome: countdown to holiday! (Reply)

I finally managed to book a week off work! Come on, 8th August. *waits*

I was just checking over my writing to-do list ahead of this and came to the following conclusions based on the last time I updated the do-to list:

The Urgent Struff

I have a ton of writing commitments going on right now, and I need some extra time to get back on top of those. First priority is obviously Night Breed, which I have fallen behind on. I am still behind on Night Breed. I have a ton of hand-written stuff to type up, but I think I'll still be behind even then, so *gulp*

Immediate urgent stuff alongside Night Breed is:

Queered Fiction horoscopes (will do those tonight). I now owe another horoscope column for August. I'm thinking the time is rapidly approaching when I have to drop the horoscope work. It's more time-consuming than people imagine, and after four or so years, I'm starting to run out of things to actually say.

Wicked Witchery - the anthology is at the lower word count limit for publication now. I'm waiting for one more author who's doing some revisions on a story, but I'm thinking I'm going to put the end of June as the deadline for submissions. I'm going to take a break from editing any more SM anthologies until Night Breed is done. Wicked Witchery is now finished and available to buy, so huzzahs!

~~Critiquing - I've got two pieces from writer friends I'm reading over and I'd like to get them wrapped up before much longer. Happily for me, they both seem to be fabulous thus far.~~ I finished both these up. I now have one novel to edit for Damnation Books, one freelance edit, and one critique as a favour sitting in the virtual inbox.

Other writing stuff that is not urgent

Snakeskin, a novella I've been playing with as a sequel to a novella called Snakebite that I submitted to Damnation Books a few weeks ago No word on this, but according to my calculations, I'm unlikely to hear anything for another six weeks or so.

Blood Romance - a longer novella set in the same world as THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE. It's really low down the priority list, but I do want to finish it and, at some stage (probably next year now), write a second novella featuring Morrow and Evanthe. No change here, although now I've finished the edits for THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE, I kinda want to get back to work on this.

Blood and Bones - ideally I'd like to finish that off this year, but having assessed my schedule and thought about where I want to focus my writing efforts, I don't plan to publish it until February 2012, a year on from NIGHT AND CHAOS. Strike out! What I have of Blood and Bones will now be worked into the revamped, full-length version of NIGHT AND CHAOS, which may be my Anti-Nano project.

Halflife - I'm planning to pick this up as my next "big" project after Night Breed is done, and hopefully crack on with it during Anti-Nano this year (I'm doing Anti-Nano again, regardless of whether anyone else is). Or maybe this will be my Anti-Nano project. I still haven't decided.

Other writing stuff I haven't actually started yet but am planning to

Caged - the second Vargulf book. This is almost definitely going to have to wait until 2012. No change here.

Another Ethan Banning novella - I have plans for Ethan. Possibly evil plans. I have about six pages of notes on this now, along with a title, some characters, and some definitely evil plans. Involving suspicious locals and possibly sea monsters.

Two more Theo Kane short stories - PAINLESS is roughly 5k, I think I could manage two more stories that length this year. No change here. I'd still like to do this, but inspiration for Theo is not coming right now.

Around all that, there will be edits for DARK HUNT (we're aiming for a late summer/early autumn 2011 release as far as I know). No edits have appeared yet, so not sure about this schedule anymore.

So my hope for the week off is that I'll have cleared enough of the editing stuff to be able to just write and watch copious amounts of Come Dine With Me. I'm making a start on the critiquing this Sunday (we have to go to a wedding tomorrow. I know!), and I'm trying to avoid social engagements for the next couple of weeks anyway because frankly, I think I've seen enough people this summer already. Yay! Pure, unadulterated writing time is just a few weeks away!