I admit I’m a bit lost. But things are good. In fact, the reason I’m a bit lost is because things are good!

I’m well over 80k in my WIP. I’m expecting it will top 100k, and if it’s a LOT more than 100k, I’ll probably edit down to that. Novels don’t pay by the word, but when an author has a story in their mind, it is what it is. Expanding or stretching too much changes its essence.

The problem is, my ROW80 goals said I’d leave NaNoWriMo behind in December, but I’m still going strong. However that’s a goal I have to alter. Finishing this novel is more important than…well, it’s important. Even though December has a lot of important stuff going on, not to mention Christmas in less than two weeks.

I paused NaNo in late November to finish up a story I wanted to submit, and I’m SO glad I did! I just got an acceptance letter for it! I’ll share more information as the publication date nears. It’s SciFi, for an anthology. Special thanks to Shoshanna Evers for reminding me, via twitter “if it’s under 4K, there’s no reason you can’t write it and have it be awesome in a couple days, IMHO” after I tweeted that I was considering giving up on my short story so as to not interrupt NaNo.

Speaking of short stories, I noticed I hadn’t posted anything on the fiction side of the blog lately. I often do the Friday prompts from Write On Edge, but I hadn’t all through NaNoWriMo. I wrote a short story called The Ambassador’s Mouse and posted it on my fiction blog (Under Loch and Key.) It’s good to bust out a random short story every now and then. This one helped me get rid of some plot bunnies that were chasing my WIP. I have some very strong women in the WIP, and the FMC in The Ambassador’s Mouse is extremely submissive. I also needed a Christian Slater fix. 🙂 It’s 6k of erotica if you’d like to read it. That means over 18 only, so if you’re not 18 yet, you can’t click the link! And if you’re an artist who feels inspired to improve upon what I cobbled together in MS Paint, I’d love to see how you visualize Eleric and Emmicia…

I also finished my last class for ‘SciFi Utopias’ that I was taking with my hubby and enjoyed immensely. I am extraordinarily proud of relevantly citing The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy’s Secret Werewolf Babies in my final paper:

Some may argue that a true utopia can only exist for a tiny population of one. In The Zillionaire Vampire Cowboy’s Secret Werewolf Babies (Bell) Rock Fangsworthy has a very specific set of ideals and needs. He is a zillionaire, so he can’t participate in a socialist utopia like Ecotopia (Callenbach) or Anarres (LeGuin) because he would not be able to keep his wealth. Like Lauren Olamina in Parable of the Sower (Butler) he has special abilities he must keep secret from the rest of the world. He might find, like her, a small group of like-minded or similarly talented people, otherwise he must live alone. And being a cowboy, for Rock Fangsworthy, Texas is heaven on earth. With all his wealth, he can’t buy the technology to create his own little utopia, he has to find it in the location that serves his needs alongside the people who share his ideals.

My thesis was “Technology Can Lead to Utopia or Dystopia”

Did you know there’s less than two weeks until Christmas?