Ein Kleines (fort)Nacht Break

Sometimes you get caught in a certain pattern and don’t realize you’ve got trapped.

I’ve been working too much and getting just about nothing accomplished. Part of this is that I tend to do this when there are to many demands from disparate locations coming at me. I want to do everything and end up doing nothing.

In this case, it’s trying to get things setup for the holiday and my official (we have two anniversaries. Long story) Silver Anniversary coming up while trying to finish a book. Nothing is set up and the book was just not progressing at all. But worse of all, I felt like all joy had gone out of my life.

So I called my editor – I’ve worked for her for eleven years, she knows the book will come – and asked her if I can send it in in January, on the tenth. She said sure.

I hate doing this, but I don’t think I would survive this next week otherwise, and I suspect the book would still be not done.

So I’m taking a vacation for two weeks. It is the first vacation I’ve taken for a long time. Mind you, the next two days will be cleaning and setting up so the house is ready when the guys come home for the holidays that start on Friday for them. BUT it’s a change of pace. I’m going to sleep late, and then clean tomorrow and then maybe go visit my friend Charles at the bookstore and get a bunch of truly trashy books (Yay!).

What are you guys doing in the next two weeks? Do you try to write when you have vacation? Or is it free time? And do you ever get in the frame of mind that you’re trying to do everything and don’t realize you’re killing yourself?

crossposted at According To Hoyt

The never ending blog tour.

It's been a heck of a week and I've been blogging -- waves hands helplessly -- everywhere. I've also become a semi-regular co-blogger at http://classicalvalues.com/ Yeah, it is a political blog, but that's all right, because like me it has politics that don't fit comfortably anywhere and are garanteed to Upset EveryoneTM. No, I haven't posted anything yet. Let me finish these other five posts and I will. My hand is being left completely free, and I suspect most of my posts will be not politics but under the heading of "if this goes on" -- or perhaps just "Not politics, just beliefs."

Is all this having any effect on my numbers? Who the heck knows? I know at this point people are having serious trouble finding Draw One In The Dark, because I keep getting emails. Note, if you're bugging me or the publisher, you're doing it wrong. I mean, you can TELL the publisher. She's busy and might not have noticed. But the people you should BUG are your local bookstore. Keep reordering the book. THAT will eventually trigger reprint. (Remember it comes from a time when there was no Amazon and authors and publishers were not that accessible.) I really can't sell any more of mine, because I still use them as giveaway publicity.

I just hope that Darkship Thieves is selling and that there have been enough printed to sustain the sales. That's all.

Meanwhile my kid, his best friend and two drawings (for the comic I need to finish) swiped from my folder resulted in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw8zbF4IcAg which I think is cute, though they tell me there will be more and much, much better.

Sorry for the scattered post. I must get some coffee and then will probably post a reading list for those of you starting out, etc, as an update. I've been meaning to do that for some time.