Yep. It’s been more than a month since I last posted here. Not sure why. I’ve definitely been busy with writing stuff — specifically edits to my novel Chaos Calling, which will be released this spring. I’m done with my edits on paper. I think it’s a good book. Ha! I don’t believe I can actually tell with my own writing, though my books do seem to come together much more cleanly and smoothly than they did a couple of years ago. I guess we can all take some hope from that. 🙂
Life has been crazy. Work has been nuts, but I don’t want to get into that. We’re finally out of our three month intensive birthday/holiday season. Everything happens between November 4th and February 15th in this household. And with an extended family as large as ours, each holiday/birthday comes with two to four gatherings (more for Christmas). I kid you not. These folks make plenty of plans to keep us busy.
Also, my daughter turned five, and her father had long ago promised her a pet when she turned five. She’s a sweet, calm girl, and she is ready for a pet, so I started doing my research on good first pets for young kids. I keep the pets in this family. Hubby will do what’s needed of him, but he would rather leave the care taking mostly in the hands of…me. 🙂 I won’t argue, even though he was the one to tell her she could have a pet. Ahem. (Mostly because the man fixes my cars and mows my lawn, and I really like not having to worry about that stuff.)
Anyhoo, the pet we chose has been freaking people out. So…you write strange fiction about nonexistent beings — who, by the way, have sex with each other and humans (yes a complaint I’ve actually gotten from extended family, to which I say, if you hate it DON’T READ IT. Also, that’s only one of my series. *sigh*) — and now you own…RATS?!?
Well, they’re wonderful! They also make it super hard to get good pictures. Here’s one of our rats, Gizmo, with my three-year-old daughter.
His brothers are Victor and Tizzy. I’m sure I’ll add pics of the other boys soon. We’ve been having a great time with them. Gizmo likes to touch noses with the dog. We’ve even been gaining construction experience as we build stuff so they can go on adventures….and yes, this is another part of what I’ve been doing with my time. 🙂
Moving forward, I will start incorporating my edits into the electronic version Chaos Calling in a couple of days. Once that’s off to my editor, I’m eager to write Shield, the final book in my Children of the Sidhe fantasy romance series. I want to write the first draft in a six-week stretch. I know I can do it — that’s devoting my 5,000 a week word count to that project alone, and then it will be DONE! The entire SERIES! Well, not quite done. I’ll still have edits, and formatting the series omnibus for print….but, oh, I am excited to finish up a series this year.
Best of luck this week, writers and other friends!
We had two rats as pets years ago when my youngest son decided he wanted them. We had gone to the pet store and asked which little creature would be best. They suggested rats because we were told they didn’t bite like hamsters, mice, or guinea pigs might. These were awesome pets. If you dangled a strong in front of them, they would bat at it just like cats do. The only two negative I can see with them…they poop wherever and whenever they like, mostly when they are distressed, and they have a very short lifespan (maybe a couple of years). If I didn’t have cats right now, I would probably get a couple more rats. Mine were so sweet!
Glad your super busy period is over! Those can be stressful. And OMG, that rat is SO cute! We’ve been debating get some kind of rodent to go in an extra terrarium we have from when my son’s lizard was smaller. A rat has been discussed – now they might move up the list. Good luck with your next WIP!