Getting back to normal

So, after a stop-and-start week last week, life is getting back to normal which means busy.

Busy means, of course, that I'm strongly focused on paid work, because--let's face it--royalties from book sales aren't sufficient to pay the bills. Current client projects include:

• Editing a young adult fantasy
• Editing a contemporary urban short story
• Editing articles for a West Coast magazine
• Ghostwriting a crime novel
• Ghostwriting a futuristic young adult fantasy (it's darned near science fiction, but not quite)
• Ghostwriting a business book
• Writing articles for two newsletters.

I've been speaking with a potential client to edit his series of books, and I hope to bring on a more clients over the next several months.

But what about my own books?

After almost a month of absolutely no progress whatsoever, I added another chapter to my current work-in-progress, Hogtied. The working title for the story was originally "Black Ice," so named after the hero's motorcycle club, Black Ice Revolution. Most romances featuring motorcycle clubs tend to be--in my not so humble opinion--lacking in creativity when it comes to MC names.

Ah, there's that arrogance we all know and love!

The latest chapter took the book past 40,000 words. It's got a few more chapters to go, so I expect it to top out between 50,000 and 60,000 words. It won't be a long novel, barely long enough to qualify as a "real" novel. Of course, we know the end of the story: it will be an HEA (happily ever after). However, no plot survives contact with the characters.

I forget who said that originally, but it's nonethless true. When writing a book, I have a general concept in my mind as to how the story's going to go. The characters always--always--manage to throw in surprises. In this book, my heroine has an unplanned pregnancy and a truly TSTL (too stupid to live) moment that nearly kills her. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to extract her from the results of her TSTL decision to reunite her with the hero. A few ideas are simmering on the back burner, but nothing thus far strikes me as the right idea.

The delay in publishing means that the release date for Hogtied has been pushed back to February 14, Valentine's Day. Cross your fingers and hope that I'll make it.

For those readers in or near Toledo, Ohio, come to the Forest Park Mall on Saturday, December 14, for the Writer's Block Author Fair. I'll be there with 30 other authors. You'll find something to read and many books in various genres to give as gifts. Support indie authors!