I'm in a strange, in-between sort of place with my various writing projects. It's been a while since I had a novel project to consume my energy, and I have to say, it's kind of nice having that consistency -- I know when I get up at the crack of dawn to work that I'll be working on the novel, and it doesn't take as long to get back into that world.

But when I'm working on a story I'm usually doing a couple other things on the side, whether it's research for a novel or trying to learn something new, like writing a play or screenplay. Or coming up with a "Big Idea" for a novel or screenplay. Or collaborating with another writer (like Greg and Tim and me and the great unfinished urban fantasy collaboration...hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

The following is more for me, to get myself organized, so feel free to skim or click away to someplace more interesting... I won't be offended.

Right now I've got the following projects up on my Desktop:

• A completed dark urban fantasy novelette that I need to revise and chop down to short story length and send out (tentative title is "Painting Haiti")
  
  
• A collaborative, short SF play (a one-act, I guess) I just started working on again, with filmmaker Aaron Vanek ("The Last Jack"), which Aaron has made into something quite cool, based on my "Unplugged" story (I'm just not sure what to do with it when it's done)
  
  
• About a thousand words of a brand-new novel that is essentially a fantasy/alternate world novel with lots of other genres thrown into, including mystery, horror, and some military stuff that I have no idea yet how to write (tentatively called The Fog of War)
  
  
• I also have another novel that I've really been itching to start writing, which is the historical baseball tale of the All Nations Team, with their mysterious outfielder; I think I've been putting that one off (for almost 6 years now!) because I don't have confidence in myself to pull it off, but I'm thinking if I keep doing that I'll never get 'round to it (maybe I'll get to it this year...)
  
  
• I also have three more novel ideas waiting in the wings -- an extension of the "Painting Haiti" story set in present-day Raleigh, using the same characters from the story and more(right now I'm calling this novel Far From Newford [inside joke, there]); a sequel to the paranormal romance Heart's Revenge, using a minor character from the first novel as the protagonist of this story, along with the headless ghost of Blackbeard, of course; and my other Big Idea novel, The Orphan Train, which is a historical story that could easily be a mainstream story or a story that falls between genres (I sort of touched on some of the themes of this one in my story "Coal Ash and Sparrows"); I'll get to these novels next year, probably, though I may try to do a story based on the first chapter or two of some of these novel ideas...
  
  
• And finally, there's the crazy screenplay idea I made copious notes on last summer, entitled "Early Retirement," my Jack-Black-meets-"Cocoon" story, which I think is going to be a lot of fun to write (but like the play, I just don't know what to DO with the screenplay when it's done -- must look into that)
  
  

So that's what's running through my little peabrain these days. Planning out all the projects I want to do in the rest of the year, before the baby arrives, and I take a bit of a breather to hang out with Elizabeth and the Jasperito (or Jasperita). That gives me about 6 months, more or less, to get my act together and complete a novel, a play, a screenplay, and a couple stories. I think that's a good deadline.

The problem is, I'm sure I'll have about 8-10 more "Big Ideas" to work on by that time as well. Ah well. We'll deal with that when the time comes... I don't need much sleep, really I don't. Later!