So here’s the plan going forward:

December I’m going to do all the writing I can, but between moving the last week of the month and a big photo scanning project with a Christmas deadline, that might not be much.  I’ll be thrilled if I can add 10,000 words to the manuscript by the end of the month.

January I’m going to pick back up.  With my current estimate, that should leave me needing 30,000-60,000 words to finish the draft.  I’d love to get that done in one month, but I’m going to give myself a reasonable deadline of February 15th.

Then I’m going to sit down and do an honest assessment between Capsule and Conqueror Worm, and decide which needs less work to get into a position where I can shop it around.  Once I’ve decided, I’m going to start a chapter-a-week program to get it ready to go.  That will take several months, but once I’m about 2/3 through, I might start actually (gasp) sending query letters off to find a literary agent.

I know.

So there’s the plan.  It’s nearly New Years, a good time for resolutions, and for realizing that I said similar things about last year.  I don’t know how I’m going to do better this year, other than really hoping and trying.  And hopefully engaging some ass kickers to help me out.

Capclave:  Seriously, a great place to be a writer and just to hang out.  This will be an early trial for CVS 2.0, but will not yet be the official coming out party.  Still, several of us are talking about being there, and at just $55 head, it’s a rather good value.  Last year I went to both World Fantasy and Capclave, and would you believe it’s Capclave I got more out of?  Well believe it.

Nanowrimo: This is when I’ll be doing a lot of work on actually writing Capsule.  There’s something about Nanowrimo that just gets me writing in a way that is hard to duplicate at other times in the year.  I’ve been victorious four out of the last 5 years.

Balticon:  When you see us talking 2.0, this is what it’s about.  This is where several CVS members have some name and face recognition, and this is going to be the big coming out party.  But the time Balticon rolls around, I really am hoping to have a first draft of Capsule, and at least a good chunk of the second draft of Conqueror Worm.

For now, a Nanowrimo post mortem.  I backed out.  Look, here’s the thing.  I was working on the thing-a-week project, which was keeping me busy, keeping me away from other projects.  And the very first thing I did was start a new project which would further keep me away from other project.  I like the plot, but it requires a lot of world building, and it deserves a lot more thought that Nanowrimo was going to let me put into it.

So here’s where I am.  I’ve got some short stories from either my aborted thing-a-week or earlier that I think can be worked into shape to submit to publications.  The list, to keep myself honest:

• Sleep (previous purchased, not published)
• Div0
• The Rustler of Drybone Gulch
• Carbon Offsets
• The Doorman
• The Queen of Belmeth
• Looking Over

Quite a list.  I’m hoping to go back into something like thing-a-week, but editing these stories over the next two months with an eye of sending them out.  Plan one is to submit something to the next Writers of the Future contest while I’m still eligible.   Then, it’ll probably be Queen of Belmeth sent off to Weird Tales.

In my novels, I need to give Conqueror Worm a big editing pass.  That’ll hopefully start no later than March, but if I can get started in February, that’ll rock.

The television pilot project, Arkham, still remains firmly on a front burner, gotta get back to work on that ASAP.

I’d like to write a spec script.

I’d like to do a massive rewrite of Halley’s Tail.

Dear lord that’s a lot of stuff.