Clearing the Baffles

March hasn’t been nearly as productive as I wanted, for numerous reasons or excuses.  In the end, it comes down to distractions.  I’m bad at letting things distract me.  Anthology calls.  Dreams.  New shinies.  Of course I’ve had deep, thorough edits on two projects that I’ve worked through in the past month, too, as well as gearing up for my first conference and two releases sooner than later.

It’s time to clear the baffles (one of my favorite things from The Hunt for Red October, along with the delicious Sean Connery).

I didn’t make a deadline.  And while I hate having incomplete projects lying around, I’ve got to turn my attention to the things I most need to accomplish.  Incompletes are filed away for another day.  If they’re meant to be, I’ll be able to finish them later.  No little call for submission or shiny is more important than fulfilling my current streams, my “promises” to my readers.  So my priorities for the rest of this month and forward are:

1. Get Survive My Fire reformatted and up for sale.

2. Get The Fire Within reformatted and up for sale.  (I have the new covers for both of these so I have no excuse, other than I put off formatting because it’s boring and tedious and I just didn’t wanna.)

3. Drag Lord Regret out by his hair, tie him up in a chair right here beside my desk, and figure out what his problem is.  Because I’m pretty sure the next Lady Wyre story is actually about him and his hangups.  Naturally he’s been resistant.  It’s been a year since her release and I’ve *got* to fulfill this pipeline.  Once this novella is done, I can move on to Deathright and finally finish it.  I’ve got at least half a dozen ideas in this universe.  It’s stupid not to write them.

4. Only after Lady Wyre’s pipeline is fulfilled, I need to give Mal and Colby a call.  I’d like to have their book submitted before Vicki’s release in August, but that might be pushing it.  A more likely goal is by the end of the year.

5. Then come back to the poor neglected project that’s been staring at me for months on my wall directly above my desk…before the sticky notes fall off and I lose my plot.  Phantom is calling.

That’s it.  No new projects, no new series.  It’s time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.