I have no idea what that means for me this year as I’m trying something completely new. I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like, if I’ll have more time to fit things in or if all that extra time I save in quitting my day job will be swallowed up by new chaos of the home variety. It’ll be nice to spread housecleaning chores along the whole week instead of cramming them in on the weekends with everything else I want to do, and I’ll enjoy cooking on a daily basis too.

What I’m hoping for, is to carve out some free time for myself. To re-discover some forgotten hobbies like music, sewing and crafts that I can share with my daughter and to reclaim my evenings as a time to relax and recharge my batteries instead of holed up in my office away from my family, feverishly clacking away at the keys.

Of course, knowing me I’ll end up with a pretty rigid schedule for myself in no time, I like to make lists and schedules. I’ve already decided to set an alarm for myself so I don’t sleep away the productive morning hours. I don’t know that I’ll end up with more books published by the end of the year with this extra time (I’ve been averaging 5 per year while working full time) but I hope to end 2013 with much less stress.

Right now I’m deep in planning for Find Me When the Sun Goes Down and I’ve had a pretty major shift in plot from what I originally envisioned when I finished Meet Me. I’ll still get to those things I originally thought of, but they’ll come in later books. I think I was getting too ambitious with plot and the storylines weren’t as personal for Bishop and Anja as they needed to be. So, I’ve stripped away a lot of elements for another day and that’ll leave me room for more intimate moments between characters. My goal is to start writing next week sometime and have it out by Spring.

I hope the holidays treated you all well and here’s to hoping 2013 brings good things to all!

You might have also noticed I’ve stopped posting about my resolutions lately. I’d given up a new thing each month and started exercising 5 days a week. Things chugged along pretty well for half the year and then in June I ran into a brick wall. After a little family tragedy, I pretty much jumped off the wagon and didn’t look back until well into July. Looking back at the first half of the year, the things I gave up and added exercise looked good on paper, but hadn’t translated into any real weight loss for me. I did feel more active from the exercise, but there were clearly more things I needed to be doing than giving up just one thing per month. So, I declared a reboot in August and now I’m back on track. Instead of giving up single things, I’ve gone back to the old proven method of tracking my intake and exercising more. So far it’s working better, I’ve lost about 11 pounds and my energy is much better.

BTW, do you guys like the “between the scenes” interviews I used to post? I didn’t get much feedback, so I stopped doing them. But I recently had a good comment requesting more, so I thought I’d put it out there. Are you interested in seeing “interviews” with characters from some of the books? Or is that only mildly interesting and my time might be better spent elsewhere?

What about some “deleted scenes” from Mercy for the Damned? Would you be at all interested in reading a couple of scenes that didn’t make the final cut?

Okay, so far this year I’ve given up fried foods, baked desserts, fast food, and started exercising 5 days a week and tracking everything I eat. It’s June, so that means it’s time to give up something else and this one is going to hurt rolling into the summer months – no more ice cream!

I went back and forth on whether it was a better idea to wait until after summer to give this one up, but in the end decided that it would be healthier to give it up now.

Let’s see… what else is going on… Nine Steps to Sara is coming along great! I’m in the home stretch now, just a few major scenes to get to, and I’ll be done with my first draft. We’ve found a great cover idea, so that’s progressing well too.

Also, my oldest is graduating high school in a few days!!! Man, I’m old…

We wake up bright and early, as always it’s a little bit strange sleeping away from home, but a nice hot shower cures the aches and pains of getting older. The Phoenix Inn boasts a free breakfast, but on weekends they never have any meat unless you like biscuits and sausage gravy (I don’t, but the Captain does), so it’s a bagel with cream cheese and some crumbly scrambled eggs for me. I’m reminded that Washington’s water tastes blecchy unless it’s filtered (but not as bad as California’s, double blecch) and decide to stick to the bottled water in the room.

Then it’s on to the wooden boat fair!

The booths have all kinds of wares from blown glass sculptures to honeycrafts to insurance. (Yep, there is seriously a booth for selling insurance. Just when I thought I could escape work!) We find the cutest dress for my 13 year old and after some furious texting (because I don’t pretend to know what she actually likes anymore), we confirm she likes it and buy it for her along with some flavored honey sticks.

After lunch at the Black Bear Diner again, It’s starting to get hot out, so we head to the mall in search of air conditioning, more retail therapy and maybe a movie. Bummer for us, it’s not all that cool in the mall, but chocolate peanutbutter ice cream helps.

Back to Target to buy more figures and we get Hawkeye (yippee!). We also discover that they sell Avengers dogtag necklaces too, so we try our luck and end up with Black Widow, which the Captain promptly claims as his own.

Because we’re on vacation, we decide to throw resolutions out the window and pick up Taco Bell for dinner back in the room. I’ve only written 36 words today and I decide that I’ve earned a couple of days off, even though I’m right in the middle of Nine Steps to Sara. I take a nice relaxing bath, and we chill out in the room all evening.

First of all, can I just say again – The Avengers opens this Friday!!!

Okay, I’m better now.

For the month of May, I’m proud to report I still haven’t cheated on any of the previous month’s resolutions. If you remember, I’ve given up fried food, fast food, baked desserts and started exercising 5 days per week. So what to give up next? Well, sadly, I’m not seeing a whole lot of movement on the scale yet, and I know why. There are still waaay too many delicious things out there for me to eat too much of! So, for May, my resolution is to start tracking what I eat again in an online food diary. I’ve done it before with great results, but I was reluctant to get back to it because it’s so tedious! But, I know it’s good for me, so as of yesterday, I’m tracking every single thing that goes into my mouth, including the sugarless gum (which is still 4 calories per stick, ).

Nine Steps to Sara is coming along well, beginnings are always hard for me on the first pass, but hopefully I can find the right creepy/entertaining vibe I’m going for.

Let me think… what else is going on… Moonsong is doing very well so far, and I’ve been very happy with the reviews I’ve received. Now if I can just get it formatted for paperback so I can add it to my shelf…

That’s about it for me, guys. Oh, but have I mentioned, The Avengers is opening this Friday?

I have to say March was a weird month for me. I saw a lot of success from the Pretty Witches giveaway and I published Mercy for the Damned, so the business of being a writer went very well. Creatively, I finished up my Push fanfic, but did little else in the world of writing. I’ve been working on my upcoming book and let me tell you, I can’t remember the last time I was in such a wishy washy mood!

I’m supposed to be working on Let Sleeping Ghosts Lie, a paranormal mystery/ghosty book similar to The Touch. But instead, I’ve been inundated with all manner of other plot ideas, each vying for a spot at my next book. I’ve even gone so far as to do some major plotting on several of these ideas, hoping one of them would pull forward as the clear winner with the hopes of starting it this month.

Well, I’ll tell you, the end of March came and I found myself no closer to picking what project to begin. Each idea has merit, but none of them were grabbing hold in just that right way that tells me it’s the next one to focus on. So, instead of writing a new book, I’ll be dusting off Moonsong, the first book I wrote about two years ago. My writing has evolved quite a bit since then, and it needs a bit of work to get it whipped into shape for publication, but that’s what I’ll be working on next. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready to go by month’s end. That means a jump start on working on the sequel to Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down or letting my other book ideas fight to the death with chopsticks to see what book comes after that, but we’ll see where we are when I come to the other side of this one.

In other news, I’m close to releasing Mercy for the Damned, it’s in the last half of edits then off to proofreading. So, hopefully that’ll be out in the next couple of weeks. I’m hoping to finish my Push fanfic before I start on my next book Let Sleeping Ghosts Lie too so I don’t stretch myself too thin. Balance… must learn balance…

In other, other news… okay this isn’t really news but I am so ready for spring to get here! It’s been in the 30′s this week with the car icing over every night. That’s crazy! I can’t wait for a little warmer weather so I can put my heavy winter coat away. What about you guys? What’s your favorite season?

Mercy for the Damned is coming along well. I’m just shy of the 50K mark, and Mercy is really in the thick of things now. She’s got Adam back, but not without a price, and they still have to rescue Ben and get Azazael out of him without releasing him completely. But they have a plan and the second jaunt into Midian is just about to get off the ground.

I’ve also got a book giveaway going for Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down through Goodreads. You can check it out here, I’m giving away two print copies of the book, the giveaway runs through February 17th. I’m working on getting some cool bookmarks printed up to give away with them too.

So far not so good is the Kindle lending library. I signed up Pretty Witches All in a Row, and have lent a whopping 3 copies so far this year. So far that’s not very worth it for having to remove it from Barnes and Noble and Smashwords, since Amazon demands they have sole distribution rights for the ebook. So, I probably won’t do that again when the period is up.