cheriepriest | Recent Entries

Day number…I don’t honestly know at this point…of quarantine/shelter-in-place/etc. and there’s talk of “reopening” the country a bit at a time starting next week. It’s stupid talk, and it’s going to get folks killed - but that won’t stop the GOP.

Everyone is angry and bored and scared. It’s complicated.

I’ve left the house a single digit number of times in the last two months. Picked up contacts from my eye doctor’s office, went to Walgreen’s for a prescription, hit up the grocery store once every week or two, and went to Lowe’s exactly once. (I needed a handful of things I can’t get elsewhere, and they’re right across the street from the grocery store so I doubled up the trip. I wore a mask and gloves, natch.)

We’ve only ordered food once. It didn’t go very well, and we haven’t done it since. That said, I would straight-up murder somebody for some tacos.

Today I petted my neighbor’s tiny old dog. I’ve been very good about not petting other people’s dogs lately [::shakes fist at sky::] but this one is elderly and mostly deaf and she sneaked into our yard to visit while I was restocking the bird feeders. She is about the size of a toaster, and very sweet. I loved on her a bit and then gave her back to her person.

Anyway. There’s a considerable amount of discourse out there about “being productive during the lockdown” vs. “give yourself permission to let it all hang out and nap if you can.” I’m kicking it somewhere in the middle, I suppose. Got some work done. Not as much as I could have. Still, better than nothing.

So I guess that’s what I’ll blog about today.

Here's recent progress on my ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. One part The Haunting of Hill House, one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 30,062

Present total word count: 92,419

Things accomplished in real life: [In the last oh month or two.] A couple of vet appointments (everyone’s fine); a trip to the grocery store once every week or two; a few Zoom cocktail hours and/or friend visits; walking the dogs every day; a lot of yardwork, yet somehow not all of what needs to be done.

Things accomplished in fiction: Hit the (almost) end of Act Three. I say “almost” end because I haven’t written the wind-down yet; I need to finish writing the first act before I decide what that chapter’s gonna look like.

Other: I believe I mentioned that this one isn’t happening entirely in order. I started with the second act (more or less) and finished up the Big! Climactic! Act Three! Scene! so now I just have to go back to the start and write the first act. I already have a stack of note cards with a list of scenes I need to massage into place. I think it’ll probably run 20-30k words when all’s said and done, so this will be a fairly long book for me. (Mine usually average right around or just under 100k.)

Other, Redux: I think I’m going to rename this book when it’s finished. The working title doesn’t fit as well as I thought - and once it’s time to hand this in, it will likely (but not definitely) be called Evergreen.

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 50,062 (not too bad, actually)

Well, here in Seattle we’re (essentially) a month in to this whole quarantine/social distancing thing and things are… strange, but at chez nous, everything is basically okay. It’s taken some juggling and some fiddling to keep it that way, for damn sure, but what can you do? When it rains, it pours.

I’ve left the house four times in as many weeks. Twice for grocery/supply runs, once to pick up my contacts (I wear daily lenses), and once to pick up a routine prescription from Walgreens. Each time I’ve gone anywhere, it’s been exponentially weirder - with fewer and fewer people on the roads, and on the sidewalks.

Fewer people in public, period.

Everywhere I went there were pieces of tape stuck to floors, indicating six feet of distance - and occasionally a store employee keeping an eagle eye on who stands where. There’s a large, hand-written sign on a nearby bar/restaurant that says, “We deliver now! Apparently.” Paper goods (tp, paper towels, napkins, etc.) are sold out almost everywhere - and where there’s any supply available, its sale is closely regulated. One pack (of whatever) per person!

Our dogs are weeks overdue for their “spa day” and they’re kind of starting to stink, but giving them a bath in this house would be… a shit-show, frankly. Alas, grooming services are not considered essential. (Even for big fluffy dogs, it’s too cold to throw a kiddie pool in the back yard and just hose them down.)

In other news, my salon is closed indefinitely. My roots runneth over.

Funny enough, a couple of months ago I ordered some Overtone conditioner, just to give it a try - but hadn’t actually used it when the shelter-in-place orders came down - two days before my hair appointment. I’ve used it a couple of times since. It definitely brightens the color, and does a so-so job of disguising my roots. Any port in a storm, eh? I dyed my own hair at home with a box for years, but I’m trying to avoid doing that to Beth, the nice lady who will be stuck fixing it when the apocalypse winds down.

Anyway, since it’s never Just One Thing At A Time… a week into the semi-formal quarantine, Greyson’s back legs gave out. He couldn’t stand for a few minutes, and then he could only stand very shakily. He was frightened and confused, and so was I, natch. But within half an hour he was fine. I called a friend who’s a veterinarian since the usual vet’s office was closed - and we were trying to decide whether to take him to the doggie ER or not, since he seemed to be swiftly improving. That lovely friend talked me off a ledge just in time for Greyson to start playing chase with Lucy. So… yeah.

Lucky for us, our vet’s office does housecalls. The next day, we had a vet visit and an rx for my sweet old man’s hip dysplasia and arthritis. He is fine. It’s just his age coming home to roost. (He turned eight years old last month, and he’s a fairly big boy.)

He’s doing much better now, and is his usual happy, low-key bouncy self. But did he have to give us a heart attack and a large vet bill (mostly for the diagnostic blood work) in the middle of all this? Oof.

At present, both dogs are stuck outside. They’ve been there all morning - banging relentlessly on the storm door, banished to the back yard… because a few days ago, our furnace gave up the ghost and we are having it replaced right now.

We’ve only been in the house for about 8 months, and in that time the furnace has done this twice - more precisely, it’s blown its fuses and melted its contact points. It turns out that the folks who flipped this house… did so with the worst furnace they could get their hands on. One tech dude (not a sales dude) told us that those things are basically designed to last a year - just long enough to survive a homeowner’s warranty before they crap out. No, we did not have a warranty on the house. It’s a long story. Just call us idiots if you want to; we don’t care and it doesn’t matter now.

So…. hello, unexpected $5000 bill at the end of the world.

Furnace replacement is noisy work up there in the attic and it’ll take half the day, so I’m blogging right now rather than trying to get any fiction writing done. This shit is distracting, y’all.

It’s also cold. Not like, “we’re all gonna die” cold, but the highs have been in the forties/lows in the thirties for the last week. On the upshot, our house has a huge row of east-facing windows on the main living level; we’ve been lucky enough to get a little sun in the mornings to warm the place up to about 70 degrees up here. Downstairs in the basement, where our bedroom is, it’s almost always about 60-65 degrees anyway. Same as usual, no big deal.

But me and my dinky little space heater have been real good pals, let me tell ya.

So… hm. What else?

Well, I’ve probably gained ten pounds this month. There’s just SO MUCH FOOD in the house, and we’re all so goddamn bored. We’re fine for toilet paper; we got a bidet before it was cool, so we don’t go through that much anyway. We’re fine for paper towels and soap and disinfectant because I’m an OCD person in a household where animals outnumber people.

When the weather warms up a bit (maybe later this week or early next) we’re going to start cleaning up the yard. Maybe I’ll risk a trip to Lowe’s by then, and get some new stuff to plant. Or maybe I won’t. I have some gloves (from a nice hair-dye kit), but no masks. It seems insufficient.

Everybody used to have masks around here, but I’m not seeing so many anymore. I think people are just running out, and it’s not like anybody has any to spare. Hell, half my crafty friends are sewing PPE from old sheets and stray fabric scraps. They’re donating them to desperate hospitals, for chrissake. This is what it’s come to.

I am not especially crafty. Not that kind of crafty, at any rate.

But my husband and I are both home (he works remotely now), and we are staying here even when we don’t want to and it’s not very convenient. We’re binge-ing shows, playing video games, surfing the internet, and walking the dogs twice a day like usual.

Our neighborhood is quiet even under ordinary circumstances, and Lucy is very dog-reactive so we’re already accustomed to keeping our distance from others. Yesterday, I had to drag the dogs away from a toddler who was begging to pet them. That was sad for everybody.

But big ups to the kid’s mom, who remained grimly firm re: the whole social distancing thing. Next time, we vowed. Next time, the dogs will get to lick a little kid, and everyone’s day will be made.

So here’s to next time, I suppose. It’s looking like another month of (what amounts to) quarantine for everybody - out here on the west coast, if not everywhere else. The federal response has been an absolute mess, but Gov. Inslee has been a rock. A competent, firm, evidence-based rock who keeps doing news conferences with scientists. Field hospitals have opened in disused sports stadiums out here, though they aren’t in use yet. Better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them, that’s what I say.

Everyone is scrambling for ventilators, everyone wants to get a coronavirus test, everybody wants more PPE gear, and everybody is shit out of luck right now. No matter what our “president” says on TV. (Most major networks won’t even show his press conferences anymore, thank God. Too much misinformation, getting too many people too scared, and too dead.)

Like Mr. Rogers always said, “Look for the helpers.” At present, our helpers are almost entirely at the state and local level, and they are holding together what’s left of reality by the skin of their teeth.

Jokes have been going around on Twitter, about how a hundred years from now, our angry tweets and desperate blog posts will be the equivalent of Civil War letters. Well then, here’s a letter to the future. May it remember us kindly - and note that when left to fend for ourselves, we rallied as best we could, in what ways we were able. Even if that mostly meant staying put and keeping our germs to ourselves.

But. Before that next hundred years arrives. Long before it arrives, I hope.

May we all remember the lesson we’ve learned about the people who are actually essential to a functioning society - especially in times of crisis - and henceforth treat those people with the respect and compensation they deserve, at every level.

Hey look, I’m still alive! I’m also in Seattle, where I live, and where I’m washing my hands a lot + staying close to home on principle. As you know, Bob - coronavirus is making the rounds. Locals are rallying to the occasion (since the feds aren’t), tests are being hacked together by UW’s medical center, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is throwing money into developing home tests, and there’s no hand sanitizer or Lysol to be found in the greater King County area. You can’t even order it on Amazon, which is surely a sign of the apocalypse.

Eh. Soap works better anyway.

On the upshot, our governor isn’t an idiot - and thanks to him, anyone can get a free test (as production ramps up) without insurance, health care workers are getting paid even if they have to bop off to quarantine, and the area’s major corporations are letting people work from home. Microsoft is even continuing to pay its hourly workers, so they don’t have to come in sick. As far as billionaires go, you can do worse than Gates, I guess.

Meanwhile, for those of us who are in generally good health, life goes on. The dogs are well, the cat is fine, my husband is working from home when he’s able, and we are all stocked up on all the important stuff. (Booze, weed, pet food. The essentials.)

And as for me, I’m getting back to work.

So here's recent progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 22,356

Present total word count: 62,357

Things accomplished in real life: [In the last oh month or two.] Started clearing out the yard from the winter mud and mildew; binged I Am Not Okay With this, 2/3 of Letterkenny, part of Hunters, first half of the new season of Castlevania; hung out with friends for a big-screen pay-per-view showing of a wrestling match; got lunch with a friend in the U-district; had a great week-long visit from dad and stepmom; had Fun With Taxes; and I’m probably forgetting a million other things, but that’ll teach me to go so long between blog posts I guess.

Things accomplished in fiction: Got all but two of my main characters successfully into the haunted old school and the shit has hit the fan, hurrah!

Other: Writing this one is… different, for me. I’m usually not much of a plotter and more of a straightforward A-Z pantser, but this one is complex and I’m not writing it all in order. Most of the first third will be written last. It feels weird, but it’s what needs to happen and I didn’t figure it out in time to do this one in a linear fashion.

Other, redux: So far, 2020 has been… generally good, but a bit packed. Besides everything mentioned above, there have been pet shenanigans - Lucy broke a second tooth and they both had to come out; her recovery was not speedy and it was a bit fraught for everyone, not least of all Greyson and Quinnie. Also, I did some volunteer writer-visit stuff with a local juvenile detention facility; I did ConFusion in January and it was the BEST; I went through several rounds of revisions on a project with my awesome new agent, and now I’m out on submission again for the first time (more or less) since 2012; and so forth, and so on. Anyway, I have not done as much non-revision writing this year as I would have preferred, but I am getting back in the saddle now ::thumbs up::

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: Let’s say 20,000 because it’s probably pretty close, tbh.

Anyway, thanks for reading, everybody. I’ll try to blog more regularly henceforth, by way of posting word metrics, if nothing else. It reminds me that I’m making progress, even when it feels like I’m not.

So as you’ve no doubt guessed by now if you regularly stop by this space, I flamed out of NaNoWriMo. I did a decent count - 30k+ words in about 2 weeks - and I’m pleased with that output, but nowhere near finished with that particular work-in-progress. I’d like to pretend that some calamitous event occurred, but nah. It’s just the holidays, and we had some houseguests, and I had to do some Christmas shopping and shipping - plus a couple of interviews, some house-related things, and a bunch of other stuff I’m conveniently forgetting about right now.

So around the middle of the month, I tapped out.

Do I wish I’d made more progress? Yes. Am I beating myself up about it? No.

The fact is, I spent the much of 2019 pretty wildly burned out by a work-for-hire project that ate my life, and I needed some serious downtime… downtime which turned out to occupy most of the middle of the year (along with moving house yet again).

That said, I am actually setting aside this WIP draft, but only temporarily. My fabulous new agent has given me edits and notes re: a fun upcoming project I gave her, and now I’m going to concentrate on cleaning it up by the New Year, that we might shop it in 2020.

Also in 2020, I will absolutely finish this WIP and - it is to be hoped - shop that one next year, too.

So 2020 will be a year of fresh starts, or that’s the plan - though it will also be the first year that I haven’t had a new release scheduled since 2004. On the one hand, that feels vaguely horrifying. On the other, what a freaking relief.

I’ve spent 16 years putting out at least one - and sometimes as many as three - new books a year, plus staying on top of short stories, tour travel and promotional events… all while trying to run my non-work life on top of it. In those 16 years I moved eight times - three of them across the country. I held down a formal day job in some form or another until 2011, and have freelanced doing corporate copywriting gigs as recently as last year. My husband and I have both had health issues here and there, and meanwhile we’ve been navigating medical and other care for two large dogs (one with chronic health issues), a very sick kitten who turned into a very large cat, and a geriatric kitty who got subQ fluids and meds several times a week for years. (May she rest in peace. We lost her this past January at the ripe old age of 22).

Anyway, it’s been… a lot. For a long time.

So although I did and/or do need some breathing room for a hot minute, it will only take the form of switching to a lower gear for a bit. After all, we’re still settling into our new old house, and we’ve got family coming to visit in January, and I’m on deck for a couple of conventions next year + some school visits and a visit to some incarcerated kids whose teacher has invited me. But I’ll still be writing! Just a little slower, probably.

My official writing goals for 2020 are modest: I’ll finish rewrites on my weird little mystery so my agent can send it out the door in the spring, and I’ll finish this WIP draft - which is likely to run a bit longer than my usual stuff typically does. If I’m lucky, I’ll get it rewritten/cleaned up/ready to shop by the end of summer. If not, hopefully by the end of the year.

Then what? I’m not sure. I have a very weird/dark project that began as a video game pitch - but I think should be a book instead. It’s been lurking in the back of my head for awhile now; maybe I’ll drag that out and take another run at it. Or hell, maybe some as-yet-unanticipated idea will hijack my brain. You never know.

At any rate, there’s the State of the Cherie. I’m hanging in there, and I’ll intermittently tweet and blog and so forth, and I’ll make you all aware of any new developments as they arise. Thanks for reading, as always, and I’ll go ahead and declare a formal hiatus on this page through the end of the year.

But I’ll be back. You know me - I never can stay away for long.

Here's today’s progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 3975 (2-day total)

Present total word count: 37,103

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; cleaned up some dog pee (pee pad + towel, but a bit got onto the carpet anyway); cleaned the entire house and then some - even busted out the carpet shampooer and took the dog beds outside to clean them good.

Things accomplished in fiction: Got hurt in the process of observing a poltergeist-type event; got dragged to the ER; inadvertently therefore “got the band back together” when everyone showed up at the hospital.

Darling duJour: Not today.

Other: Lucy has peed for several days in a row, but it’s all been on the pee pad + towel so I’m not complaining. (The rescue group from whence we adopted her used towels rather than pads - so Lucy won’t do her business unless there’s a textile on the floor. Therefore, we put down a pee pad, then add a folded towel on top.) It’s a little extra laundry, but hardly the end of the world.

Bonus Other: I realize I’ve talked about Lucy and her pee issues a lot lately, but the vet said I should try to track it a bit, so that’s what I’m doing.

Subsequent Other: Today I was reminded (courtesy of Twitter) that it’s been ten years since Boneshaker came out. That book changed my life in a lot of great ways, and I am very grateful for it—and for everyone who helped make it happen. It’s been a busy decade, with its ups and downs both personally and professionally, but that’s life, man.

Bride of Other: Speaking of, there’s a “things I’ve accomplished in this decade” meme going around the internet, and okay. I’ll take a swing at it: I bought my first house, adopted my first dog, adopted a foundling kitten, adopted a second dog, lost the beloved eldercat at an improbably advanced age; moved back to Seattle with my husband; we bought a house here - then sold it this summer in favor of something that suits us better (let us leave it at that); volunteered for a political campaign; wrote for a triple-A video game franchise; wrote for a massive IP that I’ll never mention in public so don’t ask; published 15 books; joined the Wild Cards consortium and published half a dozen pieces through that fine cabal. I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a lot more, but that’s the stuff that sprang to mind.

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 107,647

Here's today’s progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 1683

Present total word count: 33,128

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; finessed a new couch into a slightly smaller space than it would prefer; cleaned up a LOT of dog pee at the downstairs landing, dammit; henceforth did another big load of laundry; paid some bills; sorted out a shopping via internet because I didn’t feel like driving; stashed all the old couch’s cushions and stuff into the garage for eventual giveaway to any fool who wants it; cleaned up some dog poo in the yard; finished cleaning the kitchen again; took some stuff out to recycling.

Things accomplished in fiction: Changed POVs; arrived at the Biltmore and got set up; started interviewing a single dad and his 12-year-old daughter; sensed something Very Wrong.

Darling duJour: “[character] was the kind of skinny that’s hit the snooze bar on puberty, all bony arms and bony legs and a training bra with nothing to coach.”

Other: Lucy’s piss party was a good news/bad news affair. Bad news: there was a LOT of dog pee. Good news: she deposited it all on a rubber-backed mat at the downstairs landing (in front of the downstairs door, re: the stairs that go up and out into the yard). Lucy has peed there before, so we always keep the mat partially covered with a towel folded over a pee pad. I think Lucy probably peed there yesterday and we didn’t notice (the towel is a dark color) and she definitely peed there again today - and woo boy howdy, the downstairs smelled terrible.

Bonus Other: I think I got it all, and everything is presently in the laundry or dryer. ::sigh::

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 103,672

Here's recent progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 4003 (including weekend words)

Present total word count: 21,042

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; cleaned up NO dog pee after two days in a row of dog pee city; did more laundry; cleaned house; went grocery shopping; not much else.

Things accomplished in fiction: Introduced my fourth and final primary character; established how all four are connected; introduced my villain; now I just have to get the band back together ::thumbs up::

Darling duJour: “He’d always been an oddly shaped peg, not looking for a place to fit—but hunting a power position where he could anchor himself.”

Other: Since I started NaNoWriMo mid-project, I feel like there’s kind of a lot of math to keep everything current over there - but I’m sticking with it. Add me over there as a “buddy” if you want. (Click the nano link in this paragraph.)

Bonus Other: I cracked 20,000 words! It’s not really a milestone, but (for me at least) it’s when a project starts to feel like it has enough meat on its bones to start feeling good about it ::flexes little arm muscles::

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 91,586

No new work yesterday, because I was cleaning the house and running to the grocery store and getting ready to host a handful of friends + pass out candy. Halloween gets a mulligan, I don’t even care.

So here's today’s progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 2273 (respectable)

Present total word count: 17,029

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; cleaned up NO dog pee for the third day in a row, yay!; cleaned up all the Halloween decorations (even the stuff outside) and/or the leftovers of last night’s shenanigans/the kitchen/etc; laundered all the bedding.

Things accomplished in fiction: Finished half of chapter six; drummed up the courage to attend a political stump speech/rally and recalled not-so-fondly the fellow we knew in high school who is presently running for mayor.

Darling duJour: Eh, my favorite line today is a spoiler so I’ll leave it out. Oh well.

Other: So…for the first time ever, I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo. I’ve let this project cook long enough, and I would really love to finish Draft Zero before the new year. Not sure if I can credibly swing that or not, but the daily accountability can’t hurt/might help.

NaNoWriMo Other: Because I only just now updated the “projects portion” of the site, it shows me as having zero words done today - which (as you know if you’ve read this far) isn’t true. At any rate, if you want to add me as a “buddy” over there, go ahead. I’ll add you back eventually.

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 87,573

Here's today’s progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors, their now-teenage children, and their own parents - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 2106 (yay!)

Present total word count: 14,756

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; cleaned up NO dog pee today, yay!; sat around with my notebook hashing some stuff out for the next chapter; took a little nap I desperately needed; cleaned the kitchen.

Things accomplished in fiction: Finished chapter five; introduced the third of four main characters, Nick Serrano - a lawyer who successfully skips a corporate team-building exercise of “laser tag” without telling anybody why.

Darling duJour: Eh, my favorite line today is a spoiler so I’ll leave it out. Oh well.

Other: This is my best word day in ages! Ordinarily, I’d just call it “satisfactory,” since 2k/day is a generally healthy (but not stellar) pace for me when I’m drafting. But I got soooooo burned out after [work for hire project redacted] this spring, whereupon I was writing 5-6k a day for a month, and I just… haven’t yet recovered. This is a good sign, though! Let’s see if I can do it again tomorrow…

Approximate number of fiction words so far this year: 85,300

First, let me say that I had every intention of updating this more or less daily, but that never works out half as well as I want it to. For one thing, my daily word counts were pretty low - and I forgive myself, because I haven’t honestly done any real drafting of any kind since about April. It’s the kind of habit that’s easy to fall out of, and hard to fall back into. For another, I had a couple of rounds of houseguests/visitors/friends that kind of broke up the flow, not that I’m complaining in the slightest.

My social life is yet another thing that’s been largely neglected for awhile. I had a rough spring, and then I packed up and moved house. Some things are easier to bounce back from than others.

Anyway.

Here's recent progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 25 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors, their now-teenage children, and their own parents - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: 3194

Present total word count: 12,650

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs every day; had a couple of writer playdates with my friend Kat; got together with some other folks; tried a new bar with husband; tidied up the yard and Halloween decorations; made a Target run; cleaned up some cat puke; started 2 mornings with dog pee - but at least it was on the pads where it belongs; adjusted the time frame in the pitch for this story to 25 years rather than 22, which was an artifact from an earlier draft.

Things accomplished in fiction: Finished chapter four; had a little PTSD that was worse than the thing in the woods that prompted it; resolved to reach out to a friend.

Darling duJour: “Even a big enough owl could catch the corner of an eye; and when they moved, they were far more silent than the dead.”

Number of fiction words so far this year: Let’s say 83,194 and just keep up the count from there. It’s not precise, but it’s roughly fair.

2019 has been a Year Of Change over here, in a thousand and one ways both large and small. Off the top of my head: we sold our mid-century fixer in a valley and bought a Victorian bungalow on a hill, we welcomed some old friends from the south as new neighbors in Seattle, my husband had some professional changes, I had some professional changes, we lost our beloved ElderCat at the (approximate) age of 22, and we even traded our old car for a different old car. It’s kind of been one thing after another, ever since the new year rolled over.

And of course - as you know, if you clicked your way directly here - I have a new website!

For the last 15 years or so, my web presence has been managed and hosted by my pal Greg Wild-Smith - out of the goodness of his heart. He has been a total sweetheart all these years, but I hated making my own dumbassery his responsibility. Therefore, we nuked the old site from orbit, and now you get this cute little SquareSpace jobbie. It’s vastly less complicated (so that I can handle it myself), but woo boy howdy, did the old site need a good cleaning. Hell, it still had reviews on it that dated back to (I shit thee not) 2003.

The time for a reboot had come.

And the time to start writing again had come, too. I spent the first couple of months of 2019 working on a work for hire project (of which we shall speak no more), and then The Toll arrived with a lot of promotion and some travel, and then we were selling our house and buying another house - then we were moving house, God help us - and we’ve only been more-or-less settled in the new place for about a month. So (it could be argued) I had a good excuse for not getting much accomplished on the writing front, but I still don’t like it. This is probably my lowest word-count year since maybe 2006.

So now I’ve gone back to the project that I’d juuuuuust started at the beginning of this year. In my copious downtime (lol) I’d been plotting on it, fiddling with it, and setting it up… but I hadn’t actually started writing anything on it until recently. Now I’m off to the races!

So here's progress on my modern gothic ghost story about the fallout from a school shooting 22 years ago, told from the POV of four survivors, their now-teenage children, and their own parents - with Bonus! memories both faulty and true, intergenerational violence and grace alike, and a boarded up school with thirty-two ghosts who know something the police never figured out. This bad-boy is one part The Haunting of Hill House, one part The Frighteners, and one part Bowling for Columbine. Wish me luck.

Project: Kill Me Now

Deadline: none ::throws confetti::

New words written: ::shrug emoji::

Present total word count: 9456

Things accomplished in real life: Walked the dogs; took the dogs to the groomer; picked the dogs up from the groomer; did some more tweaks on the new website; cleaned kitchen; did some laundry because Lucy peed on my bathmat overnight and I might as well run some towels while I’m out it.

Things accomplished in fiction: Got about halfway through chapter 4 + introduced second major character (out of four). Began investigation at a haunted campground.

Darling duJour: “Much like doing drugs or LARPing, the main problem with ghost-hunting is the people you get stuck doing it with.”

Number of fiction words so far this year: Approximately 80k - most of that in the work-for-hire project, alas. But let’s see how much I can bang out by the end of 2019, eh?

It feels like such a long time coming, and the day is finally here: The Toll has finally landed! A million thanks to all the folks who preordered, shared links, and generally have been so wonderfully supportive through this book's journey to publication. It was a bit fraught, and the book is a bit late (no drama or anything, just Stuff That Happened) - but I'm so glad it's finally here.

I first pitched it to my editor as "Night Vale Radio meets the Dirty South," and I still stand by that assessment. This is a story for anyone who's ever lived in someplace small, somewhere out-of-the-way, or somewhere insular with loads of secrets that aren't readily shared with outsiders. It's also a story for anyone who finds that stuff Creepy As Shit.

As a point of note, before I start getting emails about some of the more peculiar details in the book... most of those odd details are directly taken from places I've called home. For example, there's a dog in a tree. There's nothing wrong with him, he's happy as a clam, and he's always in the same spot. People give directions and say things like, "Turn right at the dog in the tree." Well, that dog's name was Eddie and he lived in Saint Elmo.* The uncanny valley of doll collections was inspired by something in rural Washington. The Very Strange Town Square (and many of its features) - prompted by something near my parents' place in rural Kentucky.

The bridge itself? A one-lane jobbie out near Snoqualmie, which both charmed and horrified me the first time I drove over it. Weirdly, I've been out there several times since and can't find it. I'm sure it's there, don't get me wrong. Just... not where I remembered it, I guess.

So the little town of Staywater is an amalgam, yes - but it's entirely true, for all its strangeness. Hell, some of my long-time readers will even recognize the ghost at the haunted bar stool. He's a very old, dear friend of mine who passed away a handful of years ago. I wrote him and his dog into some of my first books, and dedicated one to him after he died. Why not keep him around? (I think it would give him a giggle.)

At any rate, Publishers Weekly gave The Toll a starred review, calling it "Moody and mysterious, this gothic tale touches the heart even as it wraps chilly fingers around the spine." And Tor.com says "If you’re looking for a summer read featuring swamp monsters, haunted bar stools, a creepy doll museum, a town populated with charmed weirdos, and two absolutely badass old ladies, well, welcome to Staywater." I'm especially fond of those old ladies. Don't underestimate old ladies. They know shit, and they are absolutely prepared to throw down in ways nobody expects when they know what's at stake.

If you're so inclined, here are some links where you can order this freaky little project that's been so long in the making. And if you do give it a read, please leave a review at your preferred spot! Reviews are like ammo in a zombie game. They're like Pac-Man pellets for authors. They're power-ups in a retro side-scroller. We love them!

Preorder The Toll at Amazon.com [trade paperback or Kindle]
Preorder The Toll at Barnes & Noble [trade paperback or Nook]
Preorder The Toll from an independent retailer near you

Thank you so much, everyone. I couldn't do this without you!

* He was a little shih tzu who climbed up a five foot fence every day, and then scaled another half dozen feet to reach his preferred vantage point. He was also elderly and almost completely blind, but that never stopped him.

Good heavens, it's been a minute, hasn't it? I had all these PLANS for my late winter/spring of '19, didn't I? Ah, well. It's a funny industry, and I sometimes have trouble saying "no" to projects, even when I'm well aware that I ought to. SPEAKING OF. The secret project mentioned in my last (now surely long forgotten) post was handed in early this month, and later this week I should get my notes for revisions. Then next month, it's more secret project grinding and yes, one day this should probably be announced. April, I've been told. We shall see.

I've still got a lot of work to do before I'm free of this one and back to the thing I tried to start, but then put down; also some rewrites on my wacky little mystery project that still needs to make the submission rounds; and furthermore some fleshing out on Cinderwich because I've finally come to peace with the idea that it needs to be a full length novel, drat it all; and I'm noodling with some thoughts for another Wild Cards project, but that one's on the back burner for now (by necessity).

And to think, I had plans to take a break this year and maybe just work on, like, one thing.

::shrug::

On the home front, things continue as things are wont to do. In sad news, we lost our beloved eldercat early in the new year. She was quite ancient and dearly loved. We found her one morning atop her favorite heating vent, having settled in for a nap and never awakened. (That we all should be so lucky.) We had her cremated, and her tiny urn is on the mantle with her collar and tags wrapped around it - because we're sentimental, that's why. She lived with us for nearly twenty years, and she was an adult when she arrived in our home. You're allowed to be sentimental when you've had a really great roommate for that long.

Shortly thereafter, we lost the fish, too - so we are now a tank-less household. I could've restocked that tank, but it felt like too much effort after we lost the little old lady. Now it's in the garage.

In the wake of the eldercat's passing, Quinnie has decided to become The Cat, rather than the smallest and least respected dog - so it's been a social adjustment, but it's gone smoothly for the most part. Lucy is learning to pay the House Yeti a little of the respect that she used to show the little old lady cat, and Greyson doesn't really seem to have noticed that anything's different.

Of course, Greyson is also trying to eat his own tail at the moment, so I won't hold him up as a bastion of wisdom or anything. He has a little cyst toward the end of his tail - far enough down that he can still reach it with the cone, ugh. It's no big deal, but he won't leave it alone. The vet and I are in the process of deciding whether to remove it or just try to keep it wrapped up until he forgets to gnaw on it.

As for Lucy, she's doing quite well. Why, just yesterday she horrified me by either finding or catching a large black coot. (A water bird about the size of a duck.) There's always the chance that it died on the property for some reason and she found it; we aren't terribly far from a lake, so it's not like it's a total freaking mystery as to how the poor thing got here - but Lucy can't possibly have caught it out of the air (she's rather fat, tbh) and it didn't hit a window, that's for damn sure. That bird was big enough to take out an airplane engine, and there are no signs of cracks, breaks, or splats.

Anyway. Yesterday was gross and bad. Let us speak no more of it.

In other news, I'm still working on the house in my copious downtime. I'm down to three sets of ugly light fixtures to be removed and three lovely new fixtures with which to replace them. They're going to be a BEAR to install, courtesy of some ridiculous ceilings. But I have a ladder and when I have the motivation, I'll put the last of these ugly 1990s cheap-ass builder grade rusted-out lights to the curb. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

Tomorrow I've got a guy coming over to take something off my hands via NextDoor, and I've got a couple of new things coming in. I also have picked out some vinyl flooring for my bathroom, and if I like it, we'll do the kitchen, too. I will get this house looking like civilized adults live here and care about our surroundings if it freaking kills me.

And oh yeah - publishing news. My southern gothic project The Toll will be dropping in July instead of this coming fall. I know, right? Cool and a tad scary - because I've been eyeballs deep and it's not that I've forgotten about it, but it was easier to worry about when it was still happening all the way out in November.

But no. July. It got a starred review from Publishers Weekly and everything. You can read that starred review here, if you like.

They called it "Moody and mysterious...[a] gothic tale [that] touches the heart even as it wraps chilly fingers around the spine." I've been calling it a low-brow southern gothic meet-cute between Welcome to Night Vale and William Faulkner, so ... your mileage may vary.

If you're the generous, lovely, pre-ordering type - please feel free to click whichever of the following is most relevant to your interests:

Preorder The Toll at Amazon.com [trade paperback or Kindle]
Preorder The Toll at Barnes & Noble [trade paperback or Nook]
Preorder The Toll from an independent retailer near you

At any rate, thanks so much for reading, and as always - I'll try to do a better job of updating this thing once in awhile. I promise.

Things are strange over here, so I'm going to put down the thing I mentioned in my last post. Not forever, but for now. I still dig the project and I have it more or less mapped out - but this isn't the time for a variety of reasons, not least of all the fact that I've had something potentially time-sensitive and time-consuming land on my plate. It's not set in stone yet, but if it all comes together it's going to eat my life for a couple of months and there won't be room for anything else from a creative standpoint.

Anyway, my agent is working on it. We shall see what happens. No, I won't tell you what it is yet (or maybe even ever! you never know...).

Besides, I don't know. I was on fire for the story for a few weeks, but I'm losing steam - which usually means that I'm coming at it from the wrong angle. Maybe I should've actually taken the break I promised myself, rather than jumping into something new right away.

At present, I have five projects hanging about on my agent's desk and on the desks of a few editors here and there; there's no way to know which of these - if any of them - will find a home and need my attention for awhile in 2019, but maybe that's enough just for now. Come the New Year, I'll reevaluate and maybe sit down with my agent for a "What next?" conversation. For now, I think it's time to recharge.

Be well, everyone. I'll be around, but I need to declare at least a semi internet hiatus through the holidays. Follow me on Twitter for your daily recommended dose of adorable animal pictures. I'll see you next year!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Rockford Place