As a rule, I'm working on a minimum of three projects at any given time. For 'working on,' read either 'writing' or 'seriously and intensively revising.' (There will usually be other projects overlapping, but they're generally the sort that require less constant attention -- processing light edits, outlining, setting up the continuity guide for a sequel.) Right now, those projects are Late Eclipses of the Sun (Toby four), The Mourning Edition (sequel to Newsflesh), and Discount Armageddon (Incryptid one). A month ago, they were Late Eclipses of the Sun, Newsflesh, and Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues. What a difference a few weeks can make, huh?

I like working on multiple projects at the same time. When something is really on fire, I can buckle down and dig my heels in, and when everything is just chuckling along at a normal pace, it means I keep myself rotating so that nothing ever has the chance to get stale. I know something is going well when I start thinking about the next thing. I'm really comfortable inside a book when it's so familiar that it's practically transcription of things I already know, and that frees my mind to go pondering what happens next in the next thing in the cycle.

When I finished last week's chapter of The Mourning Edition, I was immediately thinking about a pacing problem in the last quarter of Late Eclipses, and finally figured out how it could be repaired. While I was dealing with Late Eclipses, I found myself thinking about Verity, and ways to keep things moving without losing the quixotic edge that makes her story so damn much fun to write. And now that I'm back on Discount Armageddon, I'm pondering what's going on in my happy zombie wonderland. As long as I know what happens next, my mind is free to roam, and the text is almost always the better for it.

People periodically ask me how I juggle things. It's one of those questions that sort of causes me to look blank and blink a lot, because I really just do. I write about as fast as I think, and I need to pause sometimes and think about what I'm going to do next; that's what the alternate projects are for. As for making sure each gets its fair share of my attention, well, that's why I keep to-do lists.

My week so far has looked like this:

MONDAY: Work on revisions to the end of Late Eclipses.
TUESDAY: Finish revisions to the end of Late Eclipses, process reader edits.
WEDNESDAY: Agent revisions to An Artificial Night, start on chapter four of Discount Armageddon.

Today, I'm finishing chapter four of Discount Armageddon, and tomorrow I'll be starting on the next chunk of The Mourning Edition, with a break to work on my story for Grant's Pass. My to-do lists are robust and sassy, and glad to assist me in making progress.

Life is good.

Current stats:

Words: 3,893.
Total words: 12,873.
Reason for stopping: chapter four is ready to hit the dance floor.
Music: all Counting Crows, all day long.
Lilly: sound asleep on the filing cabinets.

The game's afoot, the gang's all here, and we've finally managed to break 10,000 words. I'm only two pages shy of breaking fifty pages, too, which is always an awesome feeling (second only to breaking a hundred -- every time a book reaches a hundred pages, I have the serious urge to throw a massive and debauched revel). I'm incredibly pleased with the way things are progressing, and I'm even managing to stick reasonably close to the series proposal outline. Which is something of a miracle.

Coming up with the bumper quotes that begin every chapter is far too much fun to be actually legal. They're just random little bits of 'family wisdom,' but they're awesome. The nice thing about bumper quotes is that as long as they fit the story and set the mood you're looking for, they don't have to flow; they're like darlings in amber, yours forever.

I estimate this book at two chapters from becoming substantially more difficult to write, as the heavy-duty plot kicks in, but it's all so much fun that I'm even looking forward to that.