East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'

And so the deadlines churn. Today, at long last, I finished a solid draft of Princess X. I'm calling it "Draft 0.5" because it still needs a good smoothing pass; I removed and added a lot of content, and while I believe everything works and holds together, it'll take one last thorough read-through before I'm confident.

That said, the more distance I can put between Right This Moment and The Last Read-Through Before I hand in Draft One...the better. But I can really only give it about a week. The plan at present is to hand it in next Friday...or possibly the following Monday, at latest.

Anyway. If you're curious, I removed several thousand words and added almost that much back into the mix. The final draft tally, at present, is 64,409 words. And for the next week (or so), I'll concentrate on (a). giving myself a little mental break, maybe over the weekend, and (b). starting content on Jacaranda in earnest.

I'm looking forward to it, honestly. I've been nibbling at that project in bits and pieces - during what precious little "down time" I permitted myself while on the death-march; and I find it so...peculiarly easy, if that makes any sense. I found the center of this one quickly, without too much difficulty. The voices are coming smoothly, the structure isn't fighting me, and the tone is precisely what I want.

This is somewhat unusual. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And on that note ... here's recent progress on my poltergeist-plagued hotel horror story, wherein everyone’s favorite steampunk Texas Ranger joins forces with a goth-as-hell gunslinger-turned-padre who may (or may not) have supernatural powers:
Project: Jacaranda
Deadline: March 31, 2014
New words written: 1835
Present total word count: 7580



Things accomplished in fiction: Met the fellow guests of the Jacaranda Hotel; checked out a crime scene that's been quietly hidden.

Next up: Quiet mayhem. And then some loud mayhem, I suspect.

Things accomplished in real life: Morning jaunts around the neighborhood with the dog; several jaunts to the dog park; copious editing and writing and rewriting on Princess X; grocery shopping; housework; all the Christmas shopping; round #1 of Christmas cards; went to and from the bank/post office/Walgreens/grocery store a time or two; mostly just worked.

Other: HUZZAH and HOORAY - for the fine folks at i09 have given Fiddlehead a very kind (and only mildly spoilery) write-up . Many thanks to all involved, of course; click to read if you're curious, but, um...as with all things - don't read the comments.

Four-legged other: Have continued the dog-park trips with Greyson, to mixed results. Sometimes he's on cloud 9 the entire time he's there; other times, like this afternoon, he acts like he could take or leave it. It doesn't seem related to any other dog's behavior, so I have no idea. He has many dog-friends there, and is well-received by everyone - just sometimes, I guess, he's not in the mood to socialize.

Bonus four-legged other: Car time remains stable at "No barfing, but continued drooling and shaking." He calmly and patiently goes to the car, gets into the car, and then climbs frantically over me to get out of it again. Maybe this is as good as it'll get. His comfort level when he arrives in new places is much higher; his confidence and fellow-dog-socialization-skills have improved greatly; and he doesn't wig out, hide, and cry at the prospect of travel...but woo boy howdy, he does not enjoy the ride.

Furthermore four-legged other: I guess it's okay if he doesn't "enjoy" the ride - I just wish I could say or do something to make him less afraid of it. But we've definitely hit a plateau in that regard.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 177,186