One Hot Mess

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:

 

It's all happening at once! In between the excitement of getting Remic* and Fergus moving in, plus mine and Kyle's Excellent A&E Adventure over the weekend, I'm playing catch-up once again on Night Breed. My main priority this week has to be finishing the edits on Wicked Witchery, which with a bit of luck I'll do tonight. The first round edits for THE NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE came in this morning, but my editor has ordered me to take my time, and added that it's one of the cleanest manuscripts she's worked on, so I'm hoping it'll be a light job. I probably won't get cracking on those til the weekend though, as this week is filling up with social occasions.

I'm meeting some friends tomorrow for drinks in the village. I haven't seen them for nearly a year, so we're well overdue a catch-up. Thursday night is going to be a mass Arkham Horror night, as apparently everyone we know wants in on the action. I'm not sure our house is even big enough for six or seven people crowded around a giant board? It'll be cozy, anyway. Friday night is D&D night for Kyle, which doesn't really affect me beyond that we host it, and my living room is full of men pretending to be dwarves or whatever until 2am. I like watching though, and I generally get plenty of work done because the whole thing is oddly inspiring.

Oh God, and the English Defence League is marching in Cambridge on Saturday. Seriously? There's going to be a massive counter-march, and I want to go along, because, seriously? The EDL? In my town? I am worried about violence though, as they've apparently already been sneaking about the local cider festivals being racist twats.

So anyway, yeah, in order not to fall too massively behind on Night Breed, I'm doing a couple of things. First is hand-writing. I rarely hand-write anything anymore, because it makes the nerve injury flare up far worse than typing. But I can manage about fifteen minutes at a time, and I can do that on the bus or in the morning before work starts, or on my lunch break, etc. I'm also writing out of order. Usually I'm very linear - I might know exactly how chapter twelve is going down, but I won't write it until I'm done with chapter eleven. I've started just jotting down scenes as they come to me though, figuring I can piece it altogether later. I don't know how well that's going to work for me, but it keeps me writing, which is good.

And that's me.

*We spent, like, fifty quid making sure Remic had lots of nice, natural-looking stuff in his viv, a big hide for him to sleep in, lots of greenery for him to climb around, and where does he spend all his time? In the five-year-old shoebox we put in there as a temporary measure until we could get to the reptile centre. Ungrateful!

By my calculations, Serve in Heaven, Reign in Hell is at 61k. I'm not going to put a deadline on it, but I want people to know that we're at the minimum word count needed for publication. Three people have told me they're working on or about to submit stories, and there's definitely still room for them - I'm shooting for 70k +. So if you're still planning to submit something, let me know!

My other anthology, Wicked Witchery, is at 47k, so plenty of room left there.

Once one (presumably Serve in Heaven...) is full, I'd love to get another one on the go. I'm really enjoying the editing gig; it's been nice to do something writing-related but different, and I've seen a couple of stories that make me think the writers have very bright futures ahead, and it's nice to think I might have given them their first publication credit.

I've got two ideas I'm pretty keen on: Zombies Versus... which would be pretty much what it said on the tin: stories of zombies fighting things! Other zombies, sharks, werewolves, hobos, whatever. I think that could be a lot of fun. The other idea is a YA school-based horror anthology (because I'm currently obsessing over Point Horror's Nightmare Hall series and wishing I hadn't donated them all to charity ten years ago). Basically, as long as time allows and people have ideas, I'd love to keep this up.