Author’s Log: Post-Tryptophan OD Edition (&ROW80)

 Oof. I don’t know about you guys, but I ever see another turkey again, it’ll be WAY too soon. Blerg. X-P

My Christmas shopping was completed without much more than a “clickety-click” over at the Amazon (I’d had my cart built for a couple of weeks in anticipation), so no pressure there, thankfully. The SALE SALE SALE extravaganza this year made me wonder what the heck is wrong with civilization (as it does most years, I suppose, but I probably block it out in self-defense). So many stores opened 8:00 on Thanksgiving, because yanno…the almighty dollar supercedes family time, at least for store employees. I know I’m dating myself here, but I remember when Black Friday meant stores were CLOSED (i.e. it was a Blackout Date). I’m not sure when that changed, but when I worked retail in the 90s Thanksgiving weekend meant I worked double shifts.

*sigh*

Anyhoo, now whenever I jump online to make with the annual credit card damage I remember the Halcyon days when the Tech Monkey and I used to do knock out our shopping the a couple of days after Halloween in New Orleans at the French Market. By then we’d more or less recovered from Halloween night in the French Quarter, and before we began the gauntlet we’d purchase banana daiquiris. Daiquiris in one hand, canvas shopping bags in the other, we’d then troll the Market in search of charming kitcsh unique to New Orleans.

Production Schedule (&ROW80)

BRIGHID’S MARK (In Production): Just received Round 2 Edits from Editor Awesome. She liked the additional world-building I did, she just wants me to add a little something else and clean up some lingering POV issues. *growl* I thought I’d eradicated all of these, but apparently not–and I like to do things right the first time. This round is due Dec 10. So I’ll do a pass this weekend and a final return sweep next weekend.

KEEPERS 3 (In Revision): This week I knocked out my query blurb/jacket copy and synopsis. YAY!

KEEPERS–ORIGINS #1 (In Revision): I’ve set a tentative release date of Dec 29 (the three month mark before Brighid’s Mark is due to be released). The story is cleaning up nice, so now I just make sure I need to get the formatting done correctly, hopefully with a time cushion in place in case I experience issues.

In additional to all this, I’ve been working on new Home page for this site and am playing around with the idea of a quarterly newsletter starting next year. It’s all still in the works, but so far it’s not turning out half bad.

I’m also (trying) to get back on board with my original goal of 1,000 words written/day, regardless of what else I’m doing, revision or marketing wise. Somewhere along the line I’ve gotten lost in the Revision/Release hurricane, and now feel I need to get back to basics.

How about you guys? Any holiday traditions you’re looking foward to? Any goals you need to revisit? We’re in the home stretch of 2013 now, folks!