Energized and aggressive

Another week—and I’m energized and excited to hit the ground running!

I’m setting myself some aggressive goals for June, and trying a new way of keeping myself on track. When I was working on the latest CES assignment, which was a novella, I knew the deadline was a little tight because of various travel I had planned in June. Plus the client requested to see each 5000-word section as I finished it. So I set up a calendar, blocked out the days I wouldn’t get much, if any, writing done, and figured out how much I had to write on each of the other days to get the job done. I also noted what the total word count would be when I hit each day’s goal.

For some reason, this visual worked exceptionally well. Sure, I had to modify it when things changed, but that was easy enough, and kept me focused.

So I’ve done the same thing for June, noting all the projects I want to work on—and how many days I’m giving myself to work on each one. Saying “I’ll do X this week” is less effective for me than seeing “X on MTW, Y on ThF, and Z on SSu” blocked out on a calendar. Dunno why, but there you have it. Just the way my brain seems to work.

My overall goals for June—which, as I said, are aggressive—are…

• get an overdue story to the editor (who kindly allowed me a few grace days)
• get everything done for Out of the Frying Pan and back to Teresa
• do the edits/rewrites for Waking the Witch and get them to the editor who requested them
• write Chapter 3 of Seasoned With Danger and submit it to the first wave of publishers
• do a brief polish through What Beck’ning Ghost (because I wrote it 20 years ago [holy crap!] and I want to make sure nothing’s extremely dated in it), write a fresh proposal, and submit it to the first wave of publishers
• write a story for the Mountain Magic anthology
• write a story fort the Crossed Genres anthology
• write a story for Alison’s Bondage anthology
• write (or at least start) a story for Kristina’s Dream Lovers anthology
• pitch rose beads article to Renaissance Magazine (if time)
• prep “In Her Hands” for Kindle, etc. (if time)

Novels take precedence over short stories, although I’ve blocked out days for each story, in between novel work. I figure that’ll also give my brain time to recharge between each type of project.

So that’ll be two new novel proposals in the mail, along with the two already in progress, and four new stories.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to publicly talk about my bigger goal for the year… For now I’ll just say that it’s also aggressive, and novel-focused. It’s been too easy for me to use story deadlines as an excuse to put of working on this novel or that one. But that’s not where I need to focus to make my career goals.

I’ve got the big picture more firmly in mind now, and I’m breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps so that I can achieve it.

Now, back to that short story!

(Oh, and I'm so chuffed: the CES client loved the novella! Yay!)

Thank you, Romantic Times!

I just got word that Romantic Times has given Fairy Tale Lust a stellar 4.5 stars!

Also, my story "How the Little Mermaid Got Her Tail Back" (as Andrea Dale) is one of the stories name-checked in the review!

Congratulations to stupendous editor Kristina Wright (and thank you again for buying my story, Kristina)!

Exclamation points for everyone!

Llyfr madness

Or, new and old and new again…

I have a new laptop! World, meet Llyfr (Welsh for “book,” both because I write books on it and because it’s a black 13.3-in MacBook).

See, when I took over as Kingdom Chronicler, as shiny aluminum 17-in Apple laptop came with the job. As much as I coveted that laptop, it’s just too big and heavy for me to be schlepping around. It would be fine at home, but when I travel, especially lugging my laptop bag through airports…not so much. So Ken is going to use the 17-in for two years, and I’ve now been upgraded to the MacBook he’d been using, replacing my beloved Afalwen (“white apple,” pronounced Avalon). Afalwen was fine, but she was getting full (this one has at least 3x as much memory), and her wireless connection wasn’t quite up to par. Plus this one has the upgraded, clearer screen.

It took me a while to find a name for Llyfr (which could have been Llyfr du, for Black Book, but that had the downside of us exclaiming “Leefer DUUU!” at random intervals, not to mention the Little Black Book connotation), and I already miss the vinyl decal on the back of Afalwen. I’ve spent way too much time yesterday looking for one for this computer. At first I wanted a silver one, but now I’m thinking white, since the Apple on the cover is pretty white. I don’t want a full skin, because those cover the apple; I don’t want something trendy, no matter how much they delight me (the Snow White, the Iron Man, the Dharma logo, the Battlestar Galactica logo).

What decal do you think would be perfect for me and Llyfr? If you find one and I like it enough to buy it, you’ll win a prize!

~ ~ ~

In other news, we have a new door!

Well, an old door, but we live in an old house, so…

Briefly, for the uninitiated: We live in a 1911 Craftsman-style bungalow that we’re slowly fixing up. The bones are fine; most of what we’re doing is cosmetic. (Except for the fact that it’s sinking into the Oxnard silt on one side, thanks to the 2-story chimney, so we’re saving up money to get it properly jacked up, because that is not cheap. And eventually we’ll have to get the original knob-and-tube wiring replaced, because more electric sockets would be A Handy Thing. And some of the pipes are still pretty old. Hey, at least we don’t have to tear down walls!)

Anyway, all of the doors and door hardware in the house are original, except for the door between the media room and the kitchen, which was put in later and was a basic hollow-core door, whereas the rest of them are the five-panel type. When the Realtor was showing the house, she apparently pointed out this door to everyone, which got the owner so cranky that she went to the salvage place in Pasadena and bought the right door. Which we never put in, until last week, when Ken’s dad visited to help with some house projects. Ken even found the right doorknob in a bin of house stuff.

However, the paint is all peeling, so we have to take it down, strip it, and stain it (everything got painted white in the house, so stripping and staining will be a many-years’ project), and then we have to clean all the hardware (knob, strike plate, and hinges) to get the paint and dirt off of them. But the door is currently hung, and that’s what matters!

~ ~ ~

There’s much more I could write about, and hopefully eventually will, but I am crammed up tight against a couple of deadlines now (three external and one of my own stubborn making), and I’ll be taking Friday and Saturday off (Friday to go to the Cat House and thence on to Ridgecrest with Morgana and Lareej, where we will meet up with Brian; and Saturday for Kingdom Coronation. We’re not staying for Crown Tournament on Sunday, though.), so now I’m off to workity workity!