Whew. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted on my own author’s page. I guess I’m one of those writers who tends to not be as active in social media. I can’t help it. I’d rather spend that time on my craft.

I’ve been working my tail off, non-stop. I’m 50,000 words into The Prairie’s Lament and hope to have the first draft complete by late April. I also just started editing the novel I finished six weeks ago. So I’m doing around 1800 words a day on Prairie’s Lament, and editing another novel afterwards. I’m not sure how I feel about this to be honest. A novel is not something you can go half-in on, whether editing or conjuring up a first draft. I’ve found that editing the previous novel in bite-sized portions works better. We’ll see if it holds up, but it the editing interferes with the creative process of Lament, I’ll set it aside.

So how do I feel about the two new novels? Great. My best work yet, although they are entirely different. I’d like to get the unnamed novel to my agent as soon as possible, but not at the expense of the first draft of Lament.

I also happen to write short stories from time to time, and one of those is appearing in the April 2012 issue of Bards and Sages Quarterly. “Street Lamps and Carbaryl” is a literary sort of thing that plays on suburban sprawl. I’ll post a link and an excerpt as soon as it’s available.

I’d like to say once I finish the first draft of Lament that I’m taking a break. But other ideas are brewing, like roiling storm clouds over a distant mountain range. Stories often choose you.