What's done in the dark will be brought to the light

It was a weekend. You know how these things go. Yardwork, housework, laundry - all that glamorous stuff; and then to cap it all off, this afternoon the husband and I met up with our new CPA to hand off all the stuff for our tax prep. Truly, we are grown-ups upon this day.

And in other adult task news, I have received my editorial letter for Princess X (the YA project I'm doing for Scholastic) ... and lo, it is epic in its scope. It is also attached to a May 19th deadline for a new draft, so that's going to eat my life for the next couple of months, you betcha.

But I'm still working on Chapelwood - onward and upward, right? - and I'm going to keep up the progress reports over here, though they may not be quite so fat and happy as before. Such is the nature of the business, when one is juggling two big projects at a time.

(Okay, three big projects - but I'm not even starting the third one until July 1. Which means I have to get these two out of the way before then. I'm on a schedule, see? Pace it out, don't cram it in. That's my motto.*)

Now we pause for cat-and-dog-related hilarity.



And let us resume with word metrics.

Here's recent progress on my witchy art-deco horror novel about Lizzie Borden thirty years after her parents' deaths - now featuring ghosts and non-ghosts alike, anti-Catholic conspiracy nuts, supernatural political shenanigans, the mafia, and a Bonus! space-worshiping murder cult hiding behind the KKK:
Project: Chapelwood
Deadline: October 1, 2014
New words written: 2686
Present total word count: 47,028



Things accomplished in fiction: Met our axe murderer, and watched him evolve a bit.

Next up: Another axe murder. If it ain't broke, right...?

Things accomplished in real life: [today] Neighborhood jaunt with dog; went to see about our taxes; chased down a few things via email/research; got back down to inbox zero; not much else, to be honest.

Other: At present, I'm writing these axe murderer segments and slotting them into my existing content...it took me awhile to figure the guy out, that's all - and now that I've done so, I'm tickled pink with him. He's not exactly a bad guy, really; his heart is in the right place, believe it or not. Heh.

Other, side note: Hey, check it out! [:: points to the next line ::] I cracked 80,000 words for the year! Meaningless milestones, hurrah!

Number of fiction words so far this year: 80,421


* I didn't used to have a motto. Now I've got that one, and life is exponentially more manageable. So long as I stick to it.