News:

Nothing to share today.

Works in Progress:

I’m going to just sit down today and try my absolute best to finish Never & Forever (Meridian Book 8). I’m at 136K words now, and I’ll probably cross 140K by the time it’s done. Anything over 110K is just exhausting, and it certainly pushed back all my plans.

I won’t be able to get May Cooler Heads Prevail out before the end of the year, because I’ve received my edits for In the Dollhouse We All Wait, which takes precedence. I’ve promised to get it back to my editor by the end of the year or a little after, and I always overestimate how fast I can do edits these days while working full time, although editing is much less mentally strenuous than writing, thank goodness, and I become less forgetful and absent-minded. On top of that, I’m in real need of rest and holidays demand that I slow down a little, for the good of myself and my family, so I have to balance everything properly. (And the week before Christmas is probably going to be just as stressful for grocery shopping work as the week before Thanksgiving.)

I’m simultaneously looking forward to working on Dollhouse and bracing myself for the way it’ll make me feel. A sensitive soul and extreme horror don’t always mix, and Dollhouse doesn’t have the same relief points that Question Not My Salt did; it’s not funny or flirty. I’ve had sympathetic reactions to a number of my other stories that are designed to be upsetting, like Puppeteer and Crooked House. Dollhouse is no different. Maybe listening to Christmas music while working on it will help, although it’ll be quite the contradiction in tone. Even I realize that listening to music of hope while editing torture is kind of weird.

Books I’m Reading:

Raising Loki: A Memoir by Elliot Manarin
Rose Madder by Stephen King

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist
Instrumental horror movie soundtracks

Things I’m Watching:

Ghosts (US) series
Matlock series (finished)
CSI: NY series
SWAT series (finished)
Great British Baking Show series

Poem of the Week:

what warns the witch?
a light in the unlit lantern
a twitch of the familiar’s tail
in silhouette to the cauldron fire
the broom falls from ensconced in the corner
the book parts to a cautionary spell
what warns the witch?
what warns the stranger?