Year's review

NaNoWriMo is over, and Christmas is well on the rise, so it's time to take a break and evaluate where I stand with things.

Uncertain Heirs is a year old now, as it was my NaNo project last year -- I've since struggled through two complete drafts, and am halfway through the third draft as we speak. There've been some people who've seen the first few chapters of the third draft and given me some fantastic critiques, but more importantly, they've given me great ideas for ways to fix the opening chapters to make them more comprehensible. With any luck, this will also make the opening chapters more enjoyable and more easily read.

"Thoroughbred" is also in the third draft stages, and as soon as I get a few more critiques, I'll go back and address any additions or corrections necessary to finalize it. I have no doubts that this short story will see the light of day well before Uncertain Heirs, so stay tuned for announcements regarding this one.

This year's NaNoWriMo brought me an abundance of new stories to work through. For starters, I made it through And The Beast during the first 15 days of NaNo, but the word count of this novella mandated I pull from other project ideas I'd been sitting on. So I wrote the short stories "I Told The Witch Doctor" and "Lightning Strikes 1,200 Times", then got partially through the novelette "We Can See It Through The Window" before hitting the required 50,000 words to win. I'm still writing on that last one, so I think it'll jump from novelette status to novella before it's through. As for And The Beast, I think it'll do the same and become a short novel once I start editing it.

Now, I know I haven't exactly kept my promise thus far about getting back into a normal posting schedule. Unfortunately, the Christmas season does that to me -- I think I have everything in order, that I'll have time to do things for myself, but it never works out that way. For instance, even though I got a jump start on my Christmas cards before NaNoWriMo, I am still working on getting all of them finished and sent out. And to think, I only have about eight to ten cards that I send out each year.

Things should really settle back into a normal routine after Christmas. Until then, stay in touch and watch for more updates regarding my stories and their expected release dates.