Right now I am working on the first book in an historical fantasy series ( and before you ask: It has a title that I love, and a cover, but I am going to sit on them for awhile). The book takes place in Sweden, around the time they stopped executing witches. It filled with witches, and werewolves and vampires I am having a lot of fun, dumping the story on the page, without much revising and back tracking. Though I have had to back-track a couple of times, since I took a couple of wrong turns. At least I figured it out. I also tried to edit as I go at the beginning of the draft, but I figured out fast that it didn’t work.

This is why my rough drafts are a mess, but that is ok. I’ll fix it in the rewrite, which will happen sometime in 2019, cause I have other books I need to revise. Hopefully I’ll figure out a way to revise faster.

I am not sure what I’ll work on once I am done with this book. Either I tackle revising Shifters’ Justice or typing in Frosthold. Both have their possibilities. Though it is possible that I will try typing in Frosthold and writing something new at the same time. The worst thing that will happen is that I figure out it wont work…. Though maybe first I should see if I can find the notebooks containing the handwritten draft.

Anyway. I think I have rambled enough.

I have a lot of flexibility in my day job, so I can basically set my own schedule (which is good and bad, since it means if I take time off, I don’t get paid). Most of the time, I work 6 hours per day with Friday off, but last week I worked 7 hours for two days. And.. I decided that even if the extra hours were nice, it wasn’t worth it. Mainly because of self-care reasons but partially because it cut into my writing time.

That, and a lunch with my brother where he sprouted nonsense like writing less and working more, made me think about protecting the writing. Or rather protecting the writing time. While I write everyday, or try to at least, Friday is my main writing day were my family is busy (=no social obligations, except maybe a dinner), so I can focus on the writing. Except… lately I have been using it to schedule meetings. Meet the real estate guy to get an estimate on mum’s house? Friday. Go to the bank? Friday. Go and check on mum’s house? Friday.

I am the first to admit that is convenient to do it, since I have time on Friday. Except… since I live 1 hour+ away from mum’s house, it means that I lose a lot of writing time when I go there.

And.. I cannot keep doing that. Writing is… a balance towards my dayjob, which can be pretty bleak sometimes. So cutting into the writing time is bad, in the long run. Doubly so when I do it while dealing with mum’s estate.
In fact, I think I will cut down on hours until the house is sold. I mean what’s the point of being able to set my own schedule if I don’t use it when I feel that I need it?

It has been a long time since I wrote something here, which has many reasons. Most of them life related, but things have calmed down now. (More or less.) While dealing with life I have been slowly working at The Dragon’s Blade, which is very messy but it is also at 26 000 words, so I am almost done.  Yay for slow and steady. 🙂

I have also been to Helsinki, which was so much fun! I got meet my friends and listen to people being smart. And I get to do it again in 2019 since Dublin won the Worldcon bid. (I might already have agreed to do a panel with my friends. Eeep.)

For the next month the plan is to wrap up the first draft of The Dragon’s Blade and then pick up Vanished again, since I put it aside when Life blew up. (I also needed the distance from it.)

If I was ambitious, I would aim to be done with Vanished before Octocon, but… I am going to be realistic and aim for Christmas instead. 🙂