Good googly-moogly, this has been a nutty week. I'm so friggin' glad it's Friday!

After lots of busy times at work and at home, I'm finally getting my fiction writing priorities in line. I started by adding some more story excerpts to my website, with the hopes that having them up for folks to see that I'll actually finish the stories!

So check out the new links to my horror story "Top of the Stacks," my weirdo SF story "Dispensed with Extreme Rapture," as well as updated links to my SF action/space opera story "Space Mercenaries" and my SF blue collar colonization story "A Colony of Walls."

It's funny, but putting these stories into a different format and up on my website helps me see them in a whole new light, and stories like the first two up there, "Stacks" and "Dispensed," seem much less heinous as I'd once thought. So maybe I'll actually get 'round to revising those suckers.

I've had to revise my writing plans for the rest of the year, due to reality's bite this month (I was pushing myself really really hard in July, and nearly overdid it).

So... I want to finish part two the SF novel, getting it up to 80,000 words, before WorldCon at the end of the month. I also want to write "Space Mercs" and send it out to a potential anthology before August is over.

For September, I want to complete the third part of the SF novel, revise "Top of the Stacks," and write the first chapter and outline for a fun short novel that I'm pretty excited about (as is Lizzie! But more on that later!)

In October, I plan on drafting most of a short novel (more on that later!) and drafting horror story "Carnival Fortunes" in time for Halloween.

Come November, I plan on writing two SF stories, "A Colony of Walls" and "All the World's a Portal." I'll also be revising my short novel (more later on that!), and starting to look at finishing up the novel City of All-Worlds.

And then in December I'll be revising "Dispensed" and working on the City novel.

And that's it -- no problem, right? Just writing two novels and a dozen stories in a year. Piece o' cake. Then next year I may be collaborating on a cool SF novel with my friend Jeff, and write a couple more stories and novels.

Oh... you were wondering about that "short novel" I was gonna write, were you? Well. Let me tell you. It's a totally new genre for me, and a month ago I would've been too embarrassed to tell anyone about it, but after talking with Lizzie about it, I'm convinced it's the way to go. I'm excited about learnigng a new genre, and I actually think it would be good for me to write in this mode, forcing me to really dig deep into my emotional well. And it's already improved my relationship with Elizabeth, my co-conspirator.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm planning to write a romance novel.

My wonderful wife Elizabeth and I spent a good hour or two last night brainstorming romance novel ideas and having a blast! I think I've got an outline already, for a ghost story/suspense novel set in Ocracoke, a tiny island on North Carolina's Outer Banks (we went there last year for a vacation and loved it there). Elizabeth pretty much came up with the whole plot on her own, and she was all pumped up about it. It was great. We'll see how it goes. I think it'll be lots of fun for both of us, and that's all that matters.

So that's that. I'm ready for the weekend! Best of luck to my little sister Katie, who's off to college today! Have fun at ECU, kiddo! I wish I was going to college instead of work today... :) Later.

Now Playing:
"Busted Stuff," Dave Matthews Band

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