January turned out to be a better month than I could have hoped for. I’ve written over 12K between three projects. Last year that would have represented about three months worth of work. So what’s different? Part of it is I’m doing a little better depression wise. Not great, but better.

But before I get into how I’ve been handling 2018 so far let me share the best news which is Dreamspinner Publications has picked up Blood Red Roulette, my vampires in Vegas novel. I may have squealed a little. Might have done the happy hippo from Fantastia dance around the room. My friends know how much this story meant to me and how hard I worked to revamp it, no pun intended. It’s been years in the making and I don’t want to get into too much detail now (saving that for the blog tours to come). Just know that Arrigo and Luc are very near and dear to my heart and I’m so happy they’re seeing publication. Oh, I’m sure I’ll be whining later when the edits come for this beast but in the end it’ll be worth it.

Now back to how I’ve been tackling this month. I’ve given myself some accountability. I’m sticking with the ‘write every day’ challenge a little better than before and joined Inking It Out on dreamwidth, a weekly accountability group. I don’t care that I go to them with 100 words for the week, at least it’s 100 words more than the week before.

Also setting some deadlines has helped. I set my own deadlines for finishing These Haunted Hills and Nine Star Press’s deadline for the Lost anthology is helping with my Sacred Kin story (which is SO desperately in need of a title I can’t begin to express it). And I’ve been chatting and sprinting with Lex Chase several times a week and believe me having someone there to talk to helps. That’s how I work best and my usual partner for this over the last decade as a radically different work schedule than I do these days and we can’t sync up like we used to.

Finding a place in some social media groups has helped too. Some groups are very helpful. Others, of course, are not. All of them have their little (or not so little) dramas but I’m getting better at navigating those waters. I’ve been part of both Queer SciFi and Rainbow Snippets for a couple of years now. They’ve been a haven and a source of encouragement and a fountain of inspiration. We all need that and I’m thankful I’ve found them. Lately Nine Star Press’s author FB page has been all of that too and I’m still so glad they picked up my steampunk Christmas story.

Speaking of them, the expansion (yeah I know I said I wouldn’t do this again but we all knew I lied) of Modified and Sacred (see, definitely needs a better title!) into a novella for their lost open call is going better than I thought it would. I’m up to 22K and it’s looking like I could potentially pull this off. These Haunted Hills is going slower but it doesn’t have the firm deadline that the Lost story does so I’m fine with that. And somehow, somewhere I started a lesbian paranormal for another of Nine Star’s ongoing calls. We’ll see what happens with that.

Here’s hoping February goes as well as January.