There once was a dragon…

A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and had a hard time going back to sleep. For some reason I started thinking about dragons, and entertained my sleepy-but-sleepless self with a story about a dragon. I’ve thought about this idea every time I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since, and yesterday realized this story is the perfect fit for the fairy tale bundle series I’m organizing!

The current plan is to put together three bundles in the fairy tale series. If there’s enough interest the series could continue past three bundles, but I figured I’d start with three and see what happens. And, of course, three is an important number in fairy tale mythology. There are the three little pigs, the three bears, the three Billy Goats Gruff, the three wishes… 🙂

I have four short stories on the list before this one, plus some editing work to do, so for now I’ll just have to entertain myself with this story when I’m having trouble sleeping.

My goblin story will be coming out shortly in a Halloween bundle, and I’m participating in a few other bundles as well. Up until now I’ve written a new short story for each bundle, which has been fun, but has also been a lot of work. Two of my previously published stories will be in new bundles this fall, which is kind of cool – partly because I didn’t have to write new stories 🙂 and partly because it’s kind of neat to have gotten to the point where I have enough short stories out that they can appear in multiple places.

I’m still super busy. I made a list earlier this evening, and it looks like I’ll have about 20 new short stories published in 2018!!! A few of them will be stories that were finished earlier, but most of them will be brand new stories. This is both daunting and exciting! A year ago I would have felt completely stressed out just thinking about the prospect of having to write this many new stories, but I’m getting more comfortable with switching gears and creating entirely new things on a regular basis. And it’s getting to be more fun!

I do need to work on my time management. I’m pretty organized, but I go through phases where I’m really good and structured, and then I switch gears and spend my time organizing something totally unrelated to writing. This actually seems to make sense at times – everyone needs down time. But sometimes it’s because I’m working on a story that challenges me somehow, and procrastinating is a way to avoid whatever is hard for me at the moment.

My current time management goal is to restructure what I do when, so that I can work on the less mentally challenging tasks during the work week when I’ve spent my days at my day job, and then leave the weekends free for writing time. This is me tricking myself 🙂 because if I’m caught up on (or, hopefully, ahead on…hey, I’m an optimist…) all of my non-writing tasks, I’ll be able to focus on writing during the times when I’m most likely to have fewer distractions. We’ll see how this goes…

Goblins and dogs and paletas

This feels like it’s been the busiest summer of my entire life. I have no idea if this is true, but it certainly has been busier than the last few summers!

My short story “The Truth About Goblins” will appear in a Halloween-themed bundle very soon. 🙂 This story is about Bean, a goblin who left the caverns a few years ago and went to live among humans.

Bean hated Halloween.

It used to be his favorite day of the year. He had fond memories of teaming up with his friends to play tricks on the older goblins, and of the music and dancing and feasting that lasted until well into the next day. But after moving to live among humans, he spends every Halloween terrified that his true nature would win out and cause him to end up eating someone.

One Halloween an old friend visits. To his dismay Bean finds himself out amongst the trick-or-treaters, where he learns the real truth about goblins.

Not only was that a super fun story to write, I’m pretty sure I’m going to write at least one more story about Bean and his friend Sneed. And no, I have absolutely no idea why those are their names. In fact, I’m pretty sure they have another friend whose name is Daggert, and he (at least I think Daggert is a he) will show up in a future story.

Or not… Writing is full of surprises. 🙂

I’m working on two projects right now – putting together the justice collection, and writing a Christmas story. I’ve reread the Christmas story I published last year three times now (it’s coming out in a new Christmas bundle in a few months) to get a feel for where I left things. The plan is to write a second story with one or more of the same characters that takes place right after the first story left off. I had such a ball writing the first story that I’d like to stay in that world and see what happens next. Of course, I have no idea what actually happens next, so this will be interesting!

I have another story coming out in a collection in a month or two, have four more short stories due by the end of 2017, and am taking a week-long writing workshop pretty soon. And then there are all the other projects that don’t have firm deadlines… It’s a busy time! But our ginormous landscaping project is almost done, Rosie is doing well (although she and Jasper both need baths…again…), and I have two flavors of paletas (popsicles) in my freezer: pineapple jalapeño, and avocado. 🙂

Hanging out with the dogs

That’s today’s post title because we had an unplanned vet visit with little Rosie, and just got a call this evening saying everything looks normal. HOORAY!!!!!

(For the curious: we found a lump on her neck yesterday, and it was larger today, which was disconcerting. The current theory is that it’s an infection of some sort, so she’s on antibiotics and we’ll get her checked out later this week to see if there’s a piece of foxtail grass or something that’s causing this.)

Rosie was a trooper, and even took a nap at the clinic (we had to wait a very long time). She has gotten lots of petting and smooching today. Right now she’s curled up in a little ball in the other room, probably hoping we’ll leave her alone for a while so she can get some sleep. 🙂

In writing news, I spent some of the time waiting to see the vet plotting out my next Christmas story. That was really fun. My plan is to have a series of Christmas stories featuring the same characters. The first story was in Rebecca M. Senese’s Very Merry Christmas bundle last year. Not only was that story super fun to write, I realized today that I unintentionally set up a lot of potential related stories.

I’m really excited to work on the next Christmas story, but first I’m wrapping up my Halloween story about Bean the goblin. I’m really close to having the cover done, I just need to play with the colors a little more. I really enjoy making covers, but it takes a lot of time because it’s important to me to do as good of a job on them as I can.

Ghost-Hunting Critters, which contains my story “Clyde and the Ghost Cat,” is now available on Amazon. I haven’t read the other stories yet, but this anthology is set in J. A. Campbell’s ghost-hunting dog universe, so of course I’ve read some of her other stories. A ghost-hunting border collie in the Old West – it’s like she wrote these stories just for me! 🙂

One of Julie’s ghost-hunting dog stories appeared in the Haunted bundle, and the current anthology is the third volume in her ghost-hunting dog series.

There’s a lot more going on, but it’s been a long day and I’m going to go hang out with the dogs. 🙂

Rosie celebrated being done hanging out in waiting rooms by playing ball in the park.