naomi_jay | Entries tagged with halflife

I made a list last week of "definite projects" and "maybe projects" to work on next year and since I'm still not sleeping properly ~~omg the sleeping pills did NOTHING why would you coat sleeping pills in sugar ffs?~~, I thought I'd share it with you all instead of putting together an actual post. So!

Definite

Finish Undertow (currently at 13856 words, projected total 40-60k)
Finish Halflife (currently at 18036 words, projected total 70-80k)
Write Urban Wolf book four
Write sequel to NIGHT AND CHAOS (currently at 7105 words, projected total 40k)

Maybe

Write two more gothic romances (provided I can get Shadow Cursed published)
Write Ethan Banning three (tentatively titled Descent)
Write third part of the NIGHT AND CHAOS trilogy
Write second Vargulf novel

I'm also toying with a third Yasmin Stoker/Shoregrave novel. I kinda have an idea for it, but it will depend on how Halflife ends and what state Shoregrave is in afterwards. Either way, I would like to wrap up the first part of the Shoregrave series in 2012, as I have plans for a second series (a trilogy) I'd like to get to work on. I will also have heavy revisions for Night Breed, the third Urban Wolf book, as well as the release at some point!

I'll be carrying on with editing projects too, but I'm planning to cut back on short story-writing next year. I want to be a focused, lean, mean writing machine next year and see how much I can get done. I've been a very distracted writer this year, and I haven't been anywhere near as productive as I planned. Having spent much of the year experimenting with self-publishing and promo stuff, I've been able to figure out what I want as a writer, and in 2012 what I want is to do more actual writing.

Current Mood: sleepy

So! It's the last day of November, which means Anti-Nano ends tonight *sob* But Winter-Write-a-Thon is here to pick up the slack! Like Anti-Nano, WWAT is now housed over at

squidathon, and everyone is welcome to join in. We check in on Mondays and Fridays and post writing snippets on Wednesdays. If you're working on something and would like some company over the cold, dark, lonely winter weeks, come and say hello!

My goal for Anti-Nano was to work on Undertow and Halflife. I was half-successful, in that I worked on Undertow. I'd like to have the first draft done by the end of December now, which is perfectly do-able if it works out at the same length as DEMONIZED (about 40k). I have a feeling it might be longer, but I'm planning to try out this technique to see if I can increase my wordage output. I'm not usually a planner when it comes to writing, but I toyed with this a little last week, and although I was a long way off 10k, I was definitely more productive with notes to work from. So we'll see.

I'm also planning to write an Ethan Christmas Special. It'll be one of the Ethan Banning Files - a short, self-published story, but festive! So there's a slim chance something nice might happen to Ethan. Look, it might, that's all. Hopefully I can get to work on that over the weekend (I have a novel to finish editing for Damnation Books, and a house party to avoid going to).

Current Mood: busy

I signed and posted the contracts last week, so I can officially announce it now:

NIGHT AND CHAOS will be republished by Damnation Books in June 2012! Huzzahs! I'm very excited and looking forward to seeing some awesome new cover art. My aim is to have part two of the trilogy (currently titled Blood and Bones but probably to be renamed) ready for submission in Spring 2012.

In other news, Anti-Nano is officially go (check out

squidathon for details), which means Halflife is back on my to-write list and the new Ethan novella/novel, Undertow is going to be started this very night. In honour of this, I've been putting together an Ethan Banning playlist. It will probably grow as the month continues but at the moment it looks like this:

When the Night Comes Down - Tiger Army
Twenty Flight Rock - Tiger Army
Under Saturn's Shadow - Tiger Army
I Turned Into A Martian - The Misfits
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
Wolf Like Me - TV On The Radio (who am I kidding, this song goes on all my playlists)
Monster - Skillet (Ethan's official theme song)
Stained Glass Cross - DOWN
The Man That Follows Hell - DOWN
Down With The Sickness - Disturbed
Divide - Disturbed
Shout 2000 - Disturbed
I Love To Say Fuck - The Murderdolls
People Hate Me - The Murderdolls

Hmm. No AFI yet...That must be rectified.

Current Mood: busy

This picture is a pretty accurate representation of how I felt on Sunday when I finished Night Breed's first draft. It clocked in at just over 72k, which means between September 1st and October 2nd I wrote just over 60k. Oh man. I don't want to do that again. I mean, it's nice to know I can, but forget that. I want to be able to sleep and watch Thundercats too.

I've sent the draft to my editor at QueeredFiction and am looking forwards to not thinking about it for a while. I'm not sure how well I've pulled off what I wanted, and I already know the emotional intensity needs amping up, especially towards the end. But it's a book, dammit, and it wasn't a book a month ago, so that's something.

(By the way, I do need beta readers, so if anyone's up for reading through, drop me a line. No pressure, no hurry).

So! What's next? Well, Anti-Nano sign-up has begun. If you're interested, go take a look and join the ~~cult~~ fun. I loved doing this last year and it spawned a year-round write-a-thon which has been awesome to be part of. In a change from last year, when I ran Anti-Nano from my LJ, I'm going to start a master community this year, which will incorporate Anti-Nano, Winter-Write-a-Thon, and Springathon. So if you want to join in one or any of those things, stay tuned!

In other news, Fictional Candy has reviewed AFTERLIFE and given Nicomedes some love. He needs the most love. I decided last week that since I'll be working on Halflife for Anti-Nano, I'd try to garner some fresh reviews for AFTERLIFE. You know, so people know what I'm talking about and stuff. And maybe buy AFTERLIFE and get excited about Halflife. So hopefully there'll be some more nice reviews coming soon!

In other other news, it's a little over a month until THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE is released! Eep. I'm working on some promo ideas for this. I'm a bit worried it'll be an odd one to work with. It's a short novella (just over 20k), it's a sweet romance (kissing but nothing more), and I haven't found many review sites that will look at sweet romances, especially sweet paranormals. I did find quite a mighty list of review sites here, though, so I'll plough through and see what comes up. I'd like to do some giveaways and prizes and fun stuff, too, possibly involving Bud Ducks. I just like Bud Ducks, okay? And you should like them too. Look at them!

Current Mood: chipper

So I'm revisiting the whole decision to self-publish at the moment, for a number of reasons previously discussed. Since June, my indie sales have plummeted and this month I've sold two books so far. That's pretty dismal. Reading about the Kindle Boards, it seems like a lot of people are seeing the same slump, but I don't really find that reassuring so much as depressing.

I already pulled NIGHT AND CHAOS and found a new home for it (I haven't signed the contracts yet, so I won't say much else because... well, there's not much else to say). WILD is probably next. I was determined to stick with self-publishing for the Vargulf Trilogy because WILD has been a tough book to categorise and that's made it a tough sell. It's not quite YA, it's not quite adult, it's not quite a romance but it's not a straight UF. I'd hoped it would find a niche through self-publishing, but I think I lack the marketing muscle to find readers who will love it.

It's currently on submission at two places, and a third has invited me to submit it to one of their lines when they open it for submissions in October. The third place is actually my first choice, so now I'm eagerly counting down to October 1st so I can be all, "hey, remember me?"

I'm glad I tried indie publishing this year but I don't plan to publish any more novels that way for the foreseeable future. Shorter pieces, yes - people are still buying UNGRATEFUL DEAD even though they could have it for free, so that's gratifying. But for me, for now, the future is not indie. I haven't achieved what I wanted to with it, and although I could stick with it and see if the theory of "ebooks are forever so readers will find you" holds true, that's not going to help my career right now.

Instead I want to focus on building on the works I already have out there. I've been pretty unfocused this year writing-wise, because I've spent a lot of time worrying about marketing, promotion, sales figures, and other stuff. Once Night Breed is finished, I'm going back to Shoregrave. I want to finish Halflife by the end of the year and make a start on the next Ethan project, Undertow. I also have plans for a trilogy set in Shoregrave featuring all-new characters.

I'm contracted for two more Urban Wolf books and I'd hope to sign on for more if possible. I want Shoregrave and Urban Wolf to be the focus for the immediate future and since both series already have publishers I'm very happy with, I see no reason not to continue working with them and really building a name for myself. I think I tried to spread myself too thinly this year and I don't need to. 2011 was the year of trying new things. I'd like 2012 to just be the year of Nome.

Current Mood: contemplative

If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning it, just leave a comment here.

I am now officially on holiday! Yay! I'll hopefully spend the first half of the week finishing off some editing assignments, then the second half writing. As usual, I have so many things I want to work on. There are actually several projects I want to wrap up before the end of the year - namely, the rewrite of NIGHT AND CHAOS, finishing Halflife, and at least starting the next Ethan project. I'm sure at least one of those things will not happen, but we'll see. In the mean time, there's Urban Wolf stuff to be done!

Current Mood: optimistic

So I have done virtually no writing this week due to being all social and whatnot, and it's making me kinda grumpy. I need to spend tonight working on Night Breed and the weekend on editing/proofreading committments.

What I do not need, brain, is an idea for a spin-off trilogy from the Shoregrave books when I haven't even finished Halflife yet, and when the next Ethan novella is obviously going to be insanely fun to write. No, no, no! Shut up! Stop making me make notes. *sticks fingers in ears* La la la la la.

Current Mood: creative

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:

( Stuff! And things! )

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!

Current Mood: calm

I remembered the other stuff I wanted to blog about. It's actually not that interesting, but it involves making lists, which I like.

So Kyle is going to stay with his mum for a week soon. Not sure when yet, but early July as we have a wedding to go to in late July. I'm hoping if the timing works out, I can take that week off work and have some "me" time. I'm supposed to give two weeks' notice for holiday, so ideally Kyle needs to book his train tickets on Friday for the second week of July. Even if I can only get a long weekend, I'll take it. I need it.

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.

Immediate urgent stuff alongside Night Breed is:

Queered Fiction horoscopes (will do those tonight).

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.

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.

Other writing stuff that is not urgent is:

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
(21st of May, as it happens, not that I'm anxiously counting off the days or anything). Snakebite clocked in at around 13k, so really short, but I liked it and I'm interested to see if someone else likes it, so I thought, why not submit it somewhere? So I did. I imagine Snakeskin will be around the same length, and if the first part gets picked up, I'd like to have the second part ready to submit straight away. I'm about 6k in at the moment.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Another Ethan Banning novella - I have plans for Ethan. Possibly evil plans.

Two more Theo Kane short stories - PAINLESS is roughly 5k, I think I could manage two more stories that length this year.

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). I will have to crush my desire to write Arkham Horror fanfiction until at least 2013.

Current Mood: sleepy

So I've had a couple of advance reviews for WILD which I think I tweeted about but didn't blog about. Rabid Reads thinks it's "the start of a promising trilogy," and Book Goggles thinks it's "a joy to read" and "damn near pefect." That makes me feel pretty good! I don't have a release date scheduled yet, but it's looking more like June than May now, so I hope people will still be interested by then!

I've been thinking a lot about the second book in the trilogy, Caged, today. I haven't started writing it yet, but it's in my head, and I've got a nice clear idea of where Lizzie's going next. I'd love to be working on it right now, but I'm starting to overwhelm myself with projects again, and I really do want to finish Halflife this year, once Night Breed's first draft is done (hopefully by the end of August). I think if I manage to wrap up Halflife by the end of this year (which seems impossibly far away but really isn't), then in 2012 I'll start on Caged. I also think reader reactions to WILD will end up dictating my non-contracted stuff and what I focus on, but we'll see. I'm just going to let the currents drag me around for a while. I feel like I waste so much energy worrying about things beyond my control; maybe it's time to just go with the flow.

In other news, I probably mentioned somewhere that Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell is closed to submissions. I'll be getting to work on the edits this weekend. There are some really wonderful stories in there, and I'm excited about seeing the final product. At the same time, I've seen a fair view submissions where it's clear the authors either A) don't understand basic rules of grammar and punctuation or B) don't understand what a short story is.

This baffles me, but maybe I'm a snob? I don't see why anyone would submit a story somewhere if the grammar and punctuation was wrong. You might not catch every mistake, but if you're at the level where you're considering publication, you should know that this is wrong:

"What happened." Asked Bob.

And this is right:

"What happened?" asked Bob.

(That's just a made up example, but it's also the most common mistake I saw in reading through submissions. People don't know how to punctuate dialogue!

The other aspect, that people don't understand what a short story is, is I guess more complex. I'm not talking about obvious things like word count, but more how a short story differs from novels and flash fiction. I want to write some more indepth posts about this, but I'm worried about coming across as a know-it-all twat. I don't know it all, but I spent my entire degree writing short stories to very strict rules, so I think I know enough.

So I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in a few such posts?

Current Mood: curious

Today is the deadline for Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell. I've got three more stories to read through, and then I'm calling the anthology full and closed, and going into the editing phase. I'm really proud of the stories in this one, and of how Wicked Witchery is shaping up, but I'm going to take a break before starting any more. For one thing, Static Movement has dozens of open anthologies right now, and I think there is such a thing as too much choice; for another I really need to cut some stuff out of my schedule for my own wellbeing. I know that sounds melodramatic, but I'm exhausted and verging on being a nervous wreck, and something has to go.

I think I have to take that approach to all my other writing stuff too. My main focus at the moment is Night Breed, the third Urban Wolf book. I don't want to get all distracted and delayed with that like I did last year with DARK HUNT because of DEMONISED, so I'm attempting to be strict with myself. Things being as they are, it hasn't worked very well so far, but I'm optimistic that once Serve in Heaven... is edited and outn of my hands, that will change.

I'm musing a lot right now about where my focus should be next, and what sort of writer I want to be. I'm getting disillusioned with the indie route, but the traditional route kinda scares me right now. Epubs and small presses are great, and I'm very loyal to QueeredFiction and Damnation Books, but I'm feeling torn right now between being two types of writer: one who writes a ton of different stuff and gets it all published one way or the other and is known for having a lot of work out there, or one who has a couple of different series (in my case, Urban Wolf and Shoregrave) and sees those through to completion before moving onto the next. I see benefits and disadvantages to both routes. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but one of the reasons I'm getting disillusioned with the indie scene is that so much of the focus seems to be on getting your next book published, not writing the best book you can.

See, the temptation for me is to just pump out whatever story strikes me and see if I can get it published, which is fine, but it means I'm never disciplined in my writing. I'd planned to have the sequel to NIGHT AND CHAOS ready by now. I'd planned to be halfway through Halflife before starting Night Breed. Neither thing happened because I got distracted by THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE. I don't want to keep putting out series' starters and then not finishing the series because some other shiny new idea gets in the way. I'd rather be known for producing a few quality novels than dozens of novellas and novels that promise more but never deliver. And that's the trap I could easily fall into.

This is possibly why I did something (I feel is) a bit crazy this morning. I queried an agent about WILD. I know! This will be the first and last query I make, and if nothing comes of it, I will still go ahead and self-publish WILD but it will be the last thing I self-publish for the time being. I want to focus on the Urban Wolf and Shoregrave series, as well as the Ethan novellas. I want to build a consistent name for myself as a writer, and the scatter-gun approach isn't working. I won't be pulling NIGHT AND CHAOS just yet (there's a new cover in the works, and I want to see what effect, if any, that has on sales), but by the end of the year, if nothing has changed in that area, I will. It all kind of feels like I'm moving backwards instead of forwards, but like I said, I need to cut some stuff out of my schedule and make time for things other than writing and panicking about writing.

Current Mood: exhausted

So yesterday was my birthday! It was lovely, and the robot invasion didn't happen, which was a bonus. I had many wishes of joy, birthday cards that referenced sea monsters, and cheap mango cocktails. My parents stopped by briefly, which is always good (them stopping by, not it being brief). I went into Cambridge because it was such a gorgeous day and drank cocktails on Parker's Piece with a bunch of friends I haven't seen for a while, which was also good. Then I came home and my friend Dave bought me and Kyle a Chinese meal as a birthday present, and we watched Drag Me To Hell (awesome) and The Nines (WTF?). All in all, a marvellous day! And my gift from Kyle is yet to arrive, so I can have like a mini-birthday extension. Yay!

In other news, I got my contract for THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE, and although I can't return it yet because I don't have a printer, I can confirm that it's set for a November 2011 publication. More yay!

In other other news, I'm torn between what to work on next. I'm going to finish proofreading WILD this weekend (maybe today, if I push it). I start the third Urban Wolf novel in May. My plan is to work on that during the week and have the weekends to write other stuff. I've got SO MANY things I want write at the moment. There will be a sequel to THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE to finish Evanthe and Morrow's story. There's another story set in the same world that I started a couple of years ago that I'd now like to finish. There's Blood and Bones, Halflife, and numerous other things too. I should be disciplined and finish the Deva Chronicles first, but I'm leaning towards the necromancer stuff, mostly because it's all set in the same wider world of my Scarlett novels, and I've been wanting to get back to those for ... well, forever.

We shall see. I think I'll finish the other necromancer story first, as I already have 7k or so on that, and I'm envisioning it being about the length of TNA (about 21k). I really am enjoying the fact that I can pretty much go where inspiration takes me, rather than worrying about writing what I think an agent wants, or whatever. I stressed myself out so much when I was agented because I felt like everything I wrote had to be The Big Thing, and I couldn't live up to my own expectations. Working with small presses, epubs, and doing indie things definitely suits me better.

Current Mood: chipper

I am very slowly making progress on Halflife again. Tonight: Snakes! Ghosts! Dogwood bushes! And that's kind of it... I'm building up towards the return of an important character from AFTERLIFE, as well as the introduction of a new important character, but at the moment I kind of feel like I'm just bouncing Yasmin between plot points. Meh. We'll get it in editing.

Once again, I find myself feeling quite envious of Nome 2007 with her easy 2-3k a-day output. I'd be so far into this book by now if I could still do that. My physiotherapy never materialised, but I'm able to take it a bit easier on the computer work at my new job most of the time, so I haven't been having many problems with my arm. Which is good! But it's still not 2k a day. Which is bad!

The frogurt is also cursed.

16611 / 80000
(20.76%)

Current Mood: tired

Give me absolute freedom in which to do whatever I want, and I will usually panic and just watch hours of Come Dine With Me. Kyle and I are almost terminally incapable of making choices between us; ask one what the other wants for dinner and they'll reply "you decide," at which point the asker will panic and ~~just watch hours of Come Dine With Me~~ order in pizza to avoid the responsibility of making a decision.

I'd like to say I'm less flakey when it comes to writing, and that I just sit my arse down every night and work on a project until it's done, dammit, but the truth is unless I have a deadline, I'm lot more ... relaxed in my approach. I don't really buy into the muse myth, but if there is a muse for Nome, she's fickle and unreliable. So since I finished the edits for DEMONISED, instead of cracking on with Blood and Bones, Wild, and Halflife like I told myself I would, I've just been messing around with stuff. There's the

tessa_morelock novella, the anthologies I'm editing, and some half-baked ideas about kelpies. It's not that I'm lazy about my writing, but I am easily distracted by Shiny Things.

This needs to stop! No more Shiny Things! So I've made a list of things to do in March and April. Keeping in mind that I'll be starting Urban Wolf 3 in May, this seems like plenty to be getting on with in the mean time:

1. Finish the Tessa novella. 1k a day should wrap it up by the end of the week, I think.
2. Finish editing Wild. Ideally I'd like this done by the end of March so I can publish it in April.
3. Make significant progress on Blood and Bones and Halflife. I'm not really giving myself a specific goal to aim for, because if I don't achieve it, I'll just feel bad about myself, and nobody wants that. But it would be nice to be close to finishing first drafts on both by the end of April.

I've also got guest blogs and horoscopes to write, and I need to send DEMONISED off to some reviewers, but those should be quick n'dirty tasks, so I'm not counting them in the list. So! It's March 8th! I have fifty three days to accomplish three things. That seems pretty damn achievable.

Current Mood: hopeful

DEMONISED is released in a week! I've been so busy with other stuff lately, I haven't really talked about it much here. I do have the official blurb:

PI Ethan Banning is smoking too much, sleeping too little, and hearing voices. One voice, to be exact: the voice of the demon that possessed him on his last case. A voice that urges him to hurt, rape, kill, and Ethan doesn't think he has the strength to ignore it much longer.

When his latest missing person case turns into a murder investigation, Ethan finds himself fighting not just demonic urges, but black magic, an incubus with a hidden agenda, and a client who just won't pay up. Luckily, Ethan's got a few friends on his side, like Detective Anna Radcliffe, and his trusty dog, Mutt. If Ethan can ignore the demon long enough, he might just solve this case before it kills him.

And of course there's UNGRATEFUL DEAD. And I'll be guest blogging in March here and there. I don't feel that I've fully conveyed yet how much I love Ethan though. Because I love him a lot, and I want everyone else to love him too. I love him even though he's a chain-smoking, borderline alcoholic. I love him even though he's sometimes a bit too sleazy and spends all his money on late-night-shopping when he knows he's in debt. I love him because he loves dogs. I love him because even know he's possessed by a demon that wants him to rape and kill and hurt people (and himself), he keeps his (admittedly skewed) sense of humour.

And I loved writing DEMONISED because Ethan was just so much fun to write, even when horrible things were happening to him, or because of him. It's funny - he was supposed to just be a side character in AFTERLIFE, a little light comic relief to Yasmin's brooding, but he took over the book for me. That's why I ended up writing DEMONISED way before I started on Halflife, and why I suspect I'll write another Ethan novella way before Halflife is finished (and hopefully published!). He's just impossible for me to resist. He's not as funny as he thinks he is, but he's a lot nicer than he'd like to pretend, and even though he's always hopelessly out of his depth, he does his best to get through. I can't help but love a man like that, even if he's a man that I made up.

So I hope, in a week's time when DEMONISED is out, some of you will read it and love him too because I want to write lots more Ethan Banning stories.

Current Mood: hopeful

OMG. This year! This year, you guys. So much is happening all at once. It's now about two weeks until DEMONISED is released, and I haven't even started any of the guest blogs I'm supposed to be doing for that. I'm waiting until I have UNGRATEFUL DEAD ready to go, which will be very, very soon, but I'm starting to panic that all the lovely authors who invited me to write for them will give up in disgust because I'm so slow. I'm sure that won't happen, but you know, it's something I should keep in mind.

Submissions for Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell are coming in nicely, but I'm now falling behind on reading and plan to catch up at the weekend. So if you submitted something and haven't heard from me, it's not because I'm ignoring you, it's because I'm saving your assuredly fabulous story for Saturday.

As far as my own writing goes, yes, I finished UNGRATEFUL DEAD. No, I haven't got back to work on Halflife, Blood and Bones, or Wild yet. I meant to do some writing last night, but I had this weird dizzy spell on the way home that I never quite recovered from last night, so I took a bath, fell asleep in it twice, and then went to my actual bed, which has far fewer drowning risks. I think I was maybe just dehydrated, because I feel fine this morning. Either that, or withdrawal from chocolate eggs. I wish I was kidding about that.

Anyway, my plan for the rest of the week is just "catch up, omg!!!" I'm going to write tonight, come hell or high water. I want to get 1k done on either Halflife or Blood and Bones. Tomorrow, Kyle is going camping at the seaside (I'm not jealous!), and I plan to spend the evening editing Wild. Friday, 1k on something again. Weekend, submissions and guest blogs. I also need to catch up on

tessa_morelock stuff at some point, because I do actually have news in that area.

I also need to nag my old boss because I left my wrist brace at the Isaac Newton and she said she'd send it to me and she hasn't. And I kinda need it and I'm not going to pay for a new one when she can post that one to me for free via the Unversity post service.

Anyway, that's me. I think I'm now caught up on being aware of everything I need to catch up on, if nothing else.

Current Mood: busy

So, I have random stuff. First off, two of the Static Movement anthologies I'm in, Serial Killers and Something From the Attic 2 are now available. Huzzahs! (And yes, that's an excerpt from my story, CASSANDRA LEE, on the Amazon product page ^_^). I'm particularly excited about the Serial Killers anthology as there are a couple of articles in there in addition to the stories that sounds pretty interesting.

Speaking of Static Movement, Submissions for Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell are coming in steadily, and they're of a great quality. I'm really pleased, in an odd way, that it's not just the regular Static Movement writers submitting. As much as I like and admire everyone over there, it's nice to see fresh blood coming in, as I hope it'll draw more attention to SM and lead to bigger things for them, and I'm totally down with that.

I'm not down with my writing, or lack of, recently. I still haven't really recovered from the slump I hit after the DEMONISED edits. I've dabbled with a couple of projects, but I can't really settle on anything, and I haven't even touched the three projects I should be working on - Blood and Bones, Halflife, and Wild. I don't know if I'm just a bit burnt out at the moment? My last three weeks at the old day job were mentally exhausting, and my first week at the new job, whilst good, has been tiring too. Not to mention the amount of time I've been spending fretting over NIGHT AND CHAOS. Over the weekend I have a couple of stories for Serve in Heaven... to read, and after that I plan to get some writing done. I think my focus is going to be on Wild; I realised today that I'm putting off self-publishing it because I'm so worried about people hating it. And I decided I had nothing to lose if they did, so I'm going to go ahead and damn the torpedoes, or something.

Speaking of torpedoes (see how smoothly I do this), I'm thinking of throwing a Twitter party for NIGHT AND CHAOS. We did one last year for SILVER KISS, and I was pretty happy with it. It was basically a week of using a #silverkiss tag to promote the novel and get people talking; I'd put questions out there, and everyone who tweeted back using the hash tag went into a draw for a copy of SILVER KISS. Are we interested? If it goes well, I'll be doing the same thing for DEMONISED in March.

Speaking of DEMONISED (this one is an actual segue), I'm aiming to finish the Ethan short story, Ungrateful Dead, either tomorrow or over the weekend. Tonight I'm just going to go "meh" and curl up on the sofa and think twice about the amount of hot chocolate I drank today. One day I will learn that hot chocolate makes me sick, no matter how delicious it is. One day. But not today.

Current Mood: sleepy

So! I've pretty much pulled myself out of the slump I fell into after I finished the edits on DEMONISED. I don't know what happened. I was all like, "I'm done. Life is sad now." I thought maybe I was feeling guilty about doing so many horrible things to Ethan throughout the novella, so I decided the cure was to write a short story about Ethan where he doesn't get covered in semen or anything. I think once it's finished I'll make it available as a free read as part of the promotion for DEMONISED (which is out very soon now!)

In other news, I haven't done any writing of note since finishing said edits. I'm leaning towards working on editing Wild, since editing is what I'm all about right now, so I can get that ready to go on the Kindle this month. After that, Blood and Bones is top of the to-do list, followed by Halflife. But I'm expecting (yet more!) edits for BLOOD HUNT, the second Urban Wolf novel, pretty soon, so basically... editty-edits.

In other other news, only four days left at the horrible day job! Huzzahs! I'm torn between being really nervous and really excited about the new job. It's been a pretty stress-laden couple of weeks here getting my temp trained, etc, so I haven't really had time to sit down and panic about the new job, so I suppose that'll hit me at the weekend.

And in other other other news, my website is currently down and probably will be for the rest of February because I don't have any money spare this month to renew the domain name thingy. I can't imagine this will impact upon anyone's lives in any way (except maybe my dad, who reads my Twitter stream via my website then rings me up to tell me off for using words like "bollocks" and possibly the occasional spammer who wants to tell me how to increase traffic to my site and therefore make my business more effective), but ... I can't remember the start of this sentence. So I shall leave it at that.

Current Mood: mellow

~~1. Eat something~~ - Yes. I ate scrambled eggs with chilli, and then I had a steak with sun-dried tomatoes and olives for lunch.
~~2. Write up call for submissions for Static Movement (of which more later)~~ - Done and sent to editor! Huzzahs.
~~3. Write February's Curious After Dark horoscopes~~ - Done, but took much longer than I thought it would.
~~4. Write something (not sure what, should probably be working on Halflife or Blood and Bones but I'm in short story mode this weekend.~~ - I added a few hundred words to a dragon novella I've been messing with, but my arm hurts so that's probably as much as I'll do today.
~~5. Shower~~ - Harder to achieve than you'd think, given the temperamental nature of my shower and the manual dexterity required to get the water at a temperature lower than "flesh-melting."
~~6. Dress~~ - Couldn't find matching socks, but otherwise it's all good.
~~7. Buy toilet roll and conditioner~~ - Can't remember where I put the conditioner but I definitely bought it.
8. Work on editing Wild
9. Eat something else
10. Skip through meadows singing about woodlarks and such

I'm about to hit goal #9 by cooking myself some tasty meal of some sort or another, but I think #8 and #10 will be put on hold until either my arm stops hurting or I find a meadow and learn some songs about woodlarks.

Current Mood: lazy

In order of likelihood to happen:

1. Eat something
2. Write up call for submissions for Static Movement (of which more later)
3. Write February's Curious After Dark horoscopes
4. Write something (not sure what, should probably be working on Halflife or Blood and Bones but I'm in short story mode this weekend.
5. Shower
6. Dress
7. Buy toilet roll and conditioner
8. Work on editing Wild
9. Eat something else
10. Skip through meadows singing about woodlarks and such

Will check back in at the end of the day to see what I accomplished!

Current Mood: hungry

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Dirty Little Whirlwind

February 2018

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Entries tagged with halflife

Writerly Wednesday: 2012

Writely Wednesday: Things and Stuff

Writerly Wednesday: NIGHT AND CHAOS news! Also, Ethan!

Writerly Wednesday: Surfacing

Self-publishing doesn't have to be for me

Last day for a signed copy of AFTERLIFE!

Shut up, brain. Nobody asked you

State of the Nome: countdown to holiday!

State of the Nome: Oh yeah...

Chaos often breeds life

Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell, updates, musing, and Wild panic

Happy Days

Action! And I mean circus grade action!

State of the Nome: I cannot cope with freedom

Why I love Ethan Banning, despite his many and varied faults

State of the Nome: Running just to stand still

Speaking of Torpedoes

"Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?" - Edgar Bergen

To Do List: The Return

To Do List