Fired off The Cold to the editor this morning after anguishing over it for two hours this morning. It appears to be done but I’m my own harshest critic, so I was very anxious this morning. Nonetheless, it’s off, out of my hands, waiting for approval. That frees me up to do more writing, including wrapping up In the Shadow of Paradise, A Promise Made, and Orchimedes (all short stories). The first is done and being cleaned up, the second halfway finished and the third is… plotted-ish.

Can’t call me a slacker all the time. Most of the time, sure.

I realized that I had stopped my yearly word count folder back in February when I started writing And Injustice For All, my Lawyers in Hell short story. Counting everything, I’m at about 65,000 words so far this year. That’s bad (production-wise, at least), but I’ve actually sold more this year than last, so I’ll call it a win.

Of course, 45,000 of that word count is for Wraithkin which, I mentioned previously, I am going to have to rewrite. *sigh*

Unless the editor pulls his hair out after reading The Cold, I’ll be finishing up both In the Shadow of Paradise and A Promise Made within the next month or so. Yay?

After that, I can start focusing on the novels again. Wraithkin and Slave of the Dark Moon are both sitting in my head, fighting a nasty turf war over who gets written first. Wraithkin seems to have the upper hand right now, only because it was being written first. Slave of the Dark Moon is fun, and once again I have a female protagonist in it (not Tori).

In the meantime…