It kind of feels like I’m back from the dead. A long time passed without any writing on my end. Not just here, but any at all. All things considered, that’s pretty ironic. Over 25 years of trying to "make it" as a writer, and the month I finally get my first really significant paycheck for fiction, I write next to nothing. It figures. But, last weekend I put aside Scratch (formerly known as The Fetch) because the conversion process from third person, past tense with multiple pov’s to first person present tense with only two pov’s was just too tedious. I picked up The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date again, wrote a couple of patch chapters and did the clean up on about half the manuscript last weekend. I’m hoping to finish it this weekend, but I have a stack of essays to grade. Definitely before Christmas, though.

So, yes, I did get a big paycheck last month from the sale to Bloomsbury of the YA novel written with Carrie Jones. That was sweet! Most of the money went to pay bills, though. I did buy myself a new laptop. It’s a Gateway. I often want to throw it out the window or stomp on it. The touchpad is incredibly sensitive. The computer is almost unusable in the same room as my wireless router. The cursor keeps jumping to wherever the mouse is, which usually causes me to highlight and delete text. Then I have to stop and fix that. I’ve adjusted the sensitivity, but it still does it.

Bloomsbury has changed the name of our novel. I didn’t ask if I could announce the new name, so I won’t. I’m not thrilled with the new name, but my female students love it and the rough cover Michelle sent, and teenage girls are the target audience. So, it’s good.

I have no news about anything werewolf related. Nadia’s Children remains just how it was months and months ago. But I’m really missing my werewolves and wanting to get back to them. Plus, there’s no therapy in editing Scratch. The therapeutic part of writing (for me) is creating that first draft.

And I’m needing the therapy. Since we had that planning period stolen from us and another class added, plus teaching both the junior and senior AP classes, I’m just burned out. I always have a stack of papers to edit and grade and lesson plans to do, tests to write, books to read or reread, etc. There hasn’t much time for anything not school related. But I’m making myself take time to write, at least on weekends. Otherwise I get kinda cranky. Just ask my wife and kids. haha