Yeah, I totally forgot to do a writing update last night, and I’m kinda busy today.

So I’m not going to be interesting and I’m not going to link up (although I still love you all!) I’m just going to wing a quick “Here’s what’s up” and leave it at that for now.

I got twelve short stories turned into my lovely editor at Distinguished Press before the end of August, as planned. Yes, the last story was sent on Sunday, the last day of the month. I might add a couple more…we’ll see what the team thinks. Some of the stories are around 2k instead of 5k+, so if the total word count is under 50k we might decide to add a story or two. Maybe make it a baker’s dozen…

Meanwhile (with the help of Loki, who is under my desk, and Simon, who is on top) I’m working on a map of the subway around the major cities near the intersection of the equator and prime meridian. Although I have a map that shows the entire moon, I think this first collection will only have the smaller map so that I have more flexibility for other cities and other stories later on.

I’m also writing up an outline for my editor that describes each city. That way, when she’s reading my initial drafts, she’ll be able to say “Wait a minute, I thought this city was ON the equator, not at the pole…” and help me to keep consistent. Soon, I will register TheCitiesofLuna as a domain, but I wanted to wait until mid September because I have a different major bill that renews at the end of August every year.

Although my very-busy-time of getting twelve stories in by the end of August is over, I’m not really slowing down. The kids are back in school and I have more uninterrupted time available now. I want to make sure I’m always a few months ahead with the lunar shorts.

I’m also starting to think about NaNoWriMo. I love participating every year! I usually go back to the Kingdom Come novels for this, but I have two other possibilities in mind. I have a stand-alone story that’s been outlined in my head for a while now, and it would be nice to get it OUT of my head. It doesn’t exactly lend itself to a series, so it might just sit on the shelf for a while. The other possibility is to return to my Steampunk series, Victoria Pontifex, which is planned as a set of five stand-alone romances with a light overreaching story arc. Three of the stories are partially written, one is a complete rough draft. They might be novella length, less than 50k, but if I can release them all within a tight time frame, I think that could be a good thing. Of course, that doesn’t fit the description for NaNoWriMo, but I’m OK with tweaking the goals to “completing the three unfinished novellas” instead of “writing a 50k novel.”

Meanwhile, I do intend to revise my initial Kingdom Come duology and send it to beta readers. I might leave the KC books on the shelf until I’m ready to dive in and have the next ‘ology (might be a trilogy) shortly after the duology. Since the KC novels are polyamorous, it makes sense to break down the stories into sets. You’re guaranteed a HEA after the end of each set…although the end of each novel might be ‘story resolved but with a hint of impending change…’.

Lots to think about. Lots to write. Lots to edit and revise.

I’d better get cracking.