December Peace

So apparently you’re supposed to actually post on your blog every now and then.

I’ve finally finished (almost) working on my next middle-grade novel, which has the working title Screaming at the Ump. Goodness. I can’t tell you how good that feels. I’m now in a surprising and content little pocket of time, waiting to hear back from the brilliant writer-friends who are reading my manuscript.

In other words, there’s absolutely nothing I ought to be working on right now.

Of course, you’re never really done, right? Those readers will pick up on myriad oversights, writer-tics, if not downright big-old hard-to-solve problems. And then I’ll have to get right back to it. But not now! Shhh! Don’t even mention that! Right now I’m singing and I can’t hear you. Fa la la la la…..

For years, the idea of getting through another novel, start to finish, was hanging over me. It’s a heavy weight. And now it’s on vacation. Which means that in some ways, so am I!

Fa la la la la….

There are exciting projects ahead—an attempt to write a chapter book with a close friend and brilliant writer, developing the ideas generated during this and last year’s PiBoIdMo. I’m even excited about the next novel I want to write, which I started, just so I could take the abstract albeit giant and potentially-debilitating-if-you-think-about-it-too-much-without-actually-doing-it step from idea to actual word document.

But with a step like that comes the feeling that this little vacation I’m enjoying is about to come to an end. I think I shall step ever so slowly…at least until January.

Enjoy a merry December, all.

Video warning: this really doesn’t start until a minute and a half in. And the quality is bad. But once it starts…1978 Bruce Springsteen! Fake snow! Some beautiful vocals near the end. (See above: I have time for this now.)