I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

Today I took our resident Little Old Lady Cat to the vet for a checkup. Due to her age (about 15-16 years old) she goes every six months, and she raises hell about it every. damn. time.



Everything came up clean and healthy, as usual - her weight is steady, everything is normal, and she didn't even get any boosters or blood drawn (that's next visit). HOWEVER. The vet trimmed her nails and cleaned out her ears, so GREAT WAS HER TRAUMA. So great, in fact, that she even permitted the dog to give her a comforting smooch or two.



She's actually quite tolerant of him, these days. Sometimes she even deigns to come rub up against him, in which case he holds VERY STILL...in case it's some kind of trick.

* * *

So here's recent progress on my modern gothic ghost story about a salvage crew trapped in a doomed southern mansion - now with a crunchy murder ballad center and Bonus! clandestine cemetery where the stones don't match the bodies (and were never meant to). As inspired by a (semi)true local legend:
Project: The Family Plot
Deadline: January 15, 2015
New words written: 1682
Present total word count: 7413



Things accomplished in fiction: Arrived at the mansion and it is SPOOKY, y'all.

Things accomplished in real life: Neighborhood jaunt with dog; inbox: zero; took kitty to the vet.

Other Project: One step forward, two steps back. Realized I needed to cut a big fat chunk, and now I'm back down to 1600 words on it. I'll probably need a good five thousand before it meets the sample chapters criteria. [:: sigh ::]

Other in General: I'm taking TFP a little slowly, trying to pace myself like I did with Maplecroft - shooting for 1k/day, but make it a really solid, thoughtful 1k/day. As opposed to rushing forward and patting myself on the back for a hearty word count, I mean. Some projects work just fine that way. Maplecroft didn't, and this one won't, either.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 158,499

Speaking of Maplecroft...how about a brief links roundup? BUT OF COURSE:

Felicia Day(!!!) - She's kind enough to give Maplecroft a little plug, right around the 1:10 mark. Many thanks!

Bookshelves of Doom - "SECRET BASEMENT LYE-FILLED MONSTER BODY DISPOSAL CABINET FTW." Hey, I'll take it :)

The Girl Who Loved Zombies - "It was especially rewarding to see Priest experimenting with form–the epistolary works nearly perfectly–and returning to a darker, slower horror."

And, as always, for those of you who might be tempted to order or leave reviews...here are the pertinent links!

Maplecroft at Amazon
Maplecroft on Kindle
Maplecroft at iTunes
Maplecroft at B&N (Nook and trade paperback)
Maplecroft at your local bookseller via IndieBound
Maplecroft at Goodreads