With yesterday’s submission of “Blood Doll”, I’m starting to feel a bit on the thin side.  Not literally – I’m still as squishy as ever – but mentally.  The last few weeks have been absolute hell, and now that things are finally starting to slow down, I’m feeling just as overwhelmed as I was before it all started.

Which sucks, let me tell you.

I keep reminding myself that it’s okay to walk away.  It’s alright to be frustrated.  And it’s healthy to take a break, no matter how strong the obsession might be.  But what isn’t okay, I’ve had to remind myself in the last few days, is giving up completely.

I can’t tell you how close I came to scrapping that manuscript.  To just deleting the whole thing, emailing my publisher, and saying “NO I WON’T DO IT!!!”

…

Needless to say, I didn’t do that.  As much as I would have liked to.  But I don’t have to worry about that anymore, because it’s out of the way.  It’s done and emailed, and the decision is no longer up to me.  I’ve done my part.  Now I can ignore it until I hear otherwise from said publisher.

Though I do need to pause for a minute and say… if this one is contracted, that will be FOUR.  Five, if you count the self-published horror story under a different name.  Since April.  I first emailed Marked to Sugar & Spice in April.  It was released in May.  Now we’re up into September and I’m pushing for my fourth contract.

Talk about a head rush.

Plus I sort of promised myself I would accept Rebel Ink Press’ submission call.  I’m not sure how well I’m going to do on it, but I do have a pretty good idea.  At least, I think it’s good.  I don’t know if they will or not.  Plus I have a few short things that I’m thinking of pitching to various places, so long as I can find something to fit each one.  And by short, I mean less than 10,000 words.

Oh, yeah… and I got into a discussion with a publisher the other day regarding the possibility of writing a shifter series.  SERIES??? ME?!?!?!?  SERIOUSLY?!?!?!

Yikes.  I want to… I’ve even been trying to build something that could squeeze at least 3 books.  Will I be able to?  Probably not until after I can clear my plate of everything else.

So after submitting that story, I sat down and made a list of the big, outstanding projects that need to be out of the way.  Right now there are eight.  One of them will work for the RIP call.  One is Splatterpunk.  One is pure horror.  One is actually going to be a contemporary series of pure erotica.  I can’t promise love and romance…but I can promise lots and lots of smut.

The other four?  Well, I have no idea what the hell to do with those.  One will be sweet, romantic fantasy, and the other three are pretty much paranormal romance.

And adding a series to the mix would only confuse me at the moment.  I have every intention of doing it (because a publisher is the one that suggested it so it must be a good idea), but some of this other stuff needs to clear out first.

So that’s where I’m at.  Looks like this little writer is going to be busy for a long time to come.