Long time, no see

Click HERE for the Audio Edition!

Um… hi?

*waves*

Wow.  I… haven’t written an entry in a while.  In fact, I haven’t really posted anything online for at least a month.  No blog entries, no Audio Editions, no #ThrowbackThursdays, no new fanfic chapters… I regret that last one, especially since I’d made a point to say I wouldn’t make my readers wait years for the completion of a fanfic.

But, obviously, I haven’t kept up with much of anything online.  Because reasons:

Reason #1:
We had a massive outbreak of fleas at my house.  The cats, the carpets, the clothing… everything was infested.  I had to crash on my brother’s couch for almost two weeks.  To kill the fleas, I bagged up everything I could, got all-natural flea spray, cedar wood chips, and flea power.  Dusted, swept, vacuumed, and mopped almost every square inch of my apartment.  Even then it didn’t kill all of them.  I went through every suggestion in the book to exterminate these things.  Set up little dishes of water and soap under a lamp in several rooms to attract the fleas so they would jump in and drown.  Gave the cats flea baths and bought a RIDICULOUSLY expensive pack of pills to feed the cats.  Said it would kill fleas for 24 hours.  As far as I can tell, it worked.  (But $30 for a pack of 6… ouch.)  My library was hit the hardest because it actually has carpet, so it’s only in the past few days that I’ve been able to reenter it without getting my ankles bitten.  Needless to say, when you spend almost every free moment cleaning for a few weeks, you tend to lose track of the writing.

Reason #2:
My time feels like it’s disappearing left and right, so the last thing I want to do is use up more of it on things that aren’t writing.  But after working at various jobs for almost a decade and still living paycheck to paycheck, I have to acknowledge that I’m not financially independent.  Thus, I’ll probably need to get a part-time job in addition to my regular library gig.  Which means I’ll be looking at 12-hour days… but hey, with only one life to live, why not spend all of it just scraping by?  Sorry, that was a little bitter.  I know I’ve got it much better than a huge portion of the world’s population, but it’s still very frustrating to not be independent.  And the realization that we only have this one life (80-90 years if we’re lucky) has increased my irritation at being forced to do busy work when I should — no, need— to be writing.  Not that I have much choice in the matter.  Guess I have to try to redo my daily schedule again in an attempt to get more done in less time.

Reason #3:
The free time I had that wasn’t spent cleaning was spent editing.  I am almost, almost, done the initial editing run-through for Ravens and Roses.  (I wanted to finish that by Sept. 1, but I still have about three chapters to go… Not sure if I’ll get that done tonight.)  My goal of having my manuscript ready to submit for publication by the end of 2015 is getting closer.  Which is both exhilarating and terrifying.  I’ve been working on pretty much nothing except Ravens and Roses for about five years now.  Yeah, you heard me right: five years.  I don’t know if I should be proud of the amount of time I’m taking to get it right or if I should lament that it takes me so damn long to finish anything.  I can’t do this for every novel.  How do authors get entire books done in a year?  From conception to publication?  HOW?!

In short, a lot’s been going on (much of it unpleasant) but the gears are still grinding forward.  I’m going to try participating in NaNoWriMo this year and see if I can complete an entire novel in that time period.  It’ll need editing afterward, but it also sounds like a nice break from Ravens and Roses.  Gotta let it sit for a while and come back fresh.  I hope.  Cat’s Cradle entries and fanfic updates may become more sporadic in the coming months.  I’ll try to keep posting, at least once a month, but no guarantees.  A long time ago I wrote that if a blog is taking away time from your novel, you need to take a break from it.  So for those of you who do read my entries, thank you so much for your time, attention, and patience.  I hope you’ll stop by again when new content appears.

If you’re looking for something to read in the meantime, check out my new page along the top called “Other Articles.”  It has links to all of the articles I’ve posted online for both personal and professional publications.  Just in case you get bored.

Oh, and by the way, Chromebooks rock.  🙂