I have not accomplished much in the past week. Sure, I organized things, went through paperwork, cleaned my house (somewhat), and had a lovely visit with an aunt and uncle I hadn’t seen since 1985. 🙂 But I haven’t done any writing since the writing workshop I went to in Oregon ended over a week ago. I haven’t done much non-writing-but-writing-related stuff either, which is what I normally do when I’m procrastinating about writing (since that way I can convince myself I’m being productive even though I secretly know I’m procrastinating). My initial excuse was that I needed a break after a week of class, but that only made sense for a few days. Now I’m totally out of excuses – and my deadlines are even closer! Ack!!!

In spite of my poor work ethic for the past week, I actually think the break was good for me. I realized a while back that I need to start planning downtime, but I hadn’t actually done that yet. Instead I’d spend more time working than I should have, and I think I ended up being less productive than if I’d had more mental breaks where I did things like read, or pull weeds, or work on teaching Rosie and Jasper more tricks. So while I have painted myself into a corner and have to focus to meet my looming deadlines, I think my bout of laziness may actually have been more constructive than it might appear. Plus my garage is much cleaner than it would have been if I’d spent the past week writing. 🙂 I just need to figure out a good way to balance all the work I want to do while giving myself breaks.

I have a few new stories coming out in May. “The Other Side of the Portal,” my first ever dinosaur story, is in A Fistful of Dinosaurs, an anthology put together by Chuck Anderson and Jim LeMay of Mad Cow Press. They put together a fun video trailer about the book. My story is set in tunnels underneath London – yes, London. 🙂 I wrote about a dinosaur named Latenivenatrix, which is considered to have been one of the most intelligent – if not the most – dinosaurs.

From “Jurassic Park” to “Godzilla,” from “The Land That Time Forgot” to “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” dinosaurs have a rich history of inspiring the idea of the creatures of the past, and those living in our society. The stories in A Fistful of Dinosaurs will continue that tradition. We love dinosaurs because they are big, we love them when they are terrifying, we love them because they are dangerous, because they destroy houses and towns, because of the reality that they were actually here, and we love them when they are cute. We love the T-Rex, we love the Triceratops. We just love dinosaurs.

“Twin Wishes,” a story I sold at the 2016 anthology workshop I went to in Lincoln City, Oregon, will be in Fiction River: Wishes, an anthology edited by Rebecca Moesta.

Forget the old adage that cautions against wishing. The sixteen stories in this latest Fiction River contain just the right amount of heart, magic, pathos, and even hope. From a daughter hoping to save her father with a crash-course in wishery to an unfortunate victim at the wrong end of someone else’s wish, these stories show teens trying to wish away their problems—with often unexpected results. But no matter the dilemma, this volume of Fiction River promises to lift your spirits and remind you just how much magic the universe offers.

I have a story in one more anthology as well, but finishing the cover is one of my many deadlines, so I’ll post about that story once the cover is ready to go. And once that’s done, I’ll move on to the next set of deadlines. 🙂