I'm distant in those hollow eyes

It's been an eventful long weekend, since last I posted! My apologies - and my further apologies for the deep-seated disappointment you're bound to experience, upon seeing how crappy my recent word counts are. In my defense, I was (a). out of town, and (b). I had to trash a bunch of material and rewrite it.

Not that it's much of a defense.

BUT FIRST. First, I did Legendary ConFusion in Michigan - and it was jam-packed with awesome, as per usual. I got to see many folks I don't hang with very often, met a few cool people from the internet, and likewise a few who I'd never had the pleasure of encountering in any fashion prior to Friday. I also tried my hand at two new things: D&D, and archery. The first one was a lot of math and bickering, but also a great deal of fun; the second was likewise a great deal of fun, but also a mighty bruise on my inner arm because I'm awful at archery. As it turns out.

There were panels, there were readings, there was shopping. There was also a new baby, for Yanni has welcomed daughter #3 into the world - though she declined all our punny suggestions for a wee girl born almost right in the middle of the event. (More's the pity.)

There are pictures over on my twitter feed, if you scroll back a bit. I didn't take any myself, but I RT'd any in which I appeared. Because vanity, I guess.

The other major distraction of the last week has been a 5-month-old lab-mix puppy named "Rufus," who has decided he wants to live here with us. A lot.

We brought him in from the cold last Wednesday afternoon, after my husband almost ran over him with our car - and by Friday, we'd successfully tracked down his owners. The pup was thenceforth returned...only to escape and reappear on our doorstep twice since then. I assure you he does have a loving family, but this loving family maybe isn't the sharpest of all possible loving families, if you get my drift. We've had a talk with them (Or two. Or three.) about keeping the little guy secured; so here's hoping the fourth time's a charm, because it's cold outside - and the world is full of fast-moving vehicles.

But boy, does he love Greyson.

Anyway. I believe that gets us all caught up again, if briefly. So 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: 1220 (meh)
Present total word count: 18,772



Things accomplished in fiction: Investigated crime scene; met the Ranger for the first time; temporarily lost track of a nun.

Next up: Find out what's up with the Ranger; reexamine the final words of our most recent victim, for there's a big fat clue in there; begin lock-down proceedings for the hotel, because a storm is coming onshore - and it's going to be a doozy.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jaunt around the neighborhood with the dog; convention and travel; unpacking all the things; catching up on all the business things; refilled prescriptions; went to grocery store; cleaned my bathroom because yuck; started getting sick with whatever my husband picked up while I was gone.

Other: Another crappy word count, but to cut myself some slack - it's actually about 1k higher than that. I spent yesterday trashing a bunch of crappy words and rebuilding them...but I lost some in the process. Now I'm back on track, but I'm trying to stagger these middle parts with care - lest they sag, and become tedious.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 11,192