I dutifully took my weekly peek at my deadlines yesterday, and became frightened…

I created a weekly calendar reminder when I almost missed a recent deadline, and set up lots of annoying notifications so I start getting reminded to look at my spreadsheet a full day in advance. This is working out very well, although it is increasing my stress level because I now have a constant reminder about all the things I’ve committed to doing for the next year and a half. 🙂

I’ve signed up to write 10 new short stories in 2018, and expect that number to grow since there are a few other things that are currently listed as tentative – plus who knows what else might come up? I’ve decided it’ll be safest if I assume I need to write 1-2 short stories every month, which seems crazy – but I know it’s doable. I just have to stay focused and figure out how to be better at time management. Thankfully fall has arrived here in Colorado and scared away most of my allergies, so I am almost back to my normal super productive self and it feels great! (Note that my allergies aren’t really that bad, so those of you who have truly awful allergies should scoff at me.)

I’ve updated my In The Works page to list the stories that have reasonably firm publication dates, so you can get a glimpse into what’s coming up. At least five of those stories are done or mostly done. 🙂

“The Truth About Goblins,” my first-ever goblin story, will be available on October 1st in the On Hallow’s Eve bundle, which is curated by the spookily wonderful Rebecca M. Senese. I can’t wait to write another goblin story – this one was super fun.

Fortunately I already have an excuse to write more monster stories! I’m teaming up with a friend on a series of monster-themed story bundles. We’re still pretty early in the planning process, so you’ll have to wait for more details, but this has been super fun already. This is also the first time I’ve collaborated with anyone on something like this, and I’m really enjoying working with someone else. The first bundle in the monster series is tentatively scheduled to come out in March – I’ll share more details as we work them out.

That makes three bundle series I’m actively working on – one about faeries, one with a fairy tale theme, and the monsters series. A Procession of Faeries is the name of the faerie series (not to be confused with fairy tales…yes, this is confusing…). The Faerie Summer is the first volume in this series; the second, Midwinter Fae, will be released in December.

I’m also gearing up to start a regular interview series on my publishing site. I already write a weekly how-to series for authors – the latest post is on how to bevel and emboss text with Photoshop, which made me want to spend hours playing with fonts! The new series will be a combination of interviews about authorly things as well as interviews with authors about their writing.

I realize this sounds like a crazy amount of work, and yes it is – and yes, I have a day job, plus Rosie and Jasper to entertain as well. But it’s really fun to have so much going on, and while I may be feeling overly optimistic now that fall is here, I’m going to plow ahead and pretend that my own to do lists (since there are several) don’t frighten me…

Rosie and Jasper are, of course, always at the top of the priority list. 🙂