Back, damn you, back!

Okay– I told myself I would never again let the dragon get me by the throat the way it did with Promise Rock.

I only narrowly kept that promise with Making Promises. The dragon is sneaky. The dragon gnaws away at my knitting time and builds up crap on the kitchen table. The dragon scares away the children with blank looks from the computer and easy food from the freezer. The crafty bastard takes advantage of the teenagers by trying to get them to do chores that I should be doing, just so I can get on the computer and give it free reign.

But I managed to club it into submission this time– barely. Just barely. I figure it’ll take me eight weeks to finish Making Promises instead of the six weeks Promise Rock did.

Fucking dragon.

Oh yeah– did I mention it is (and mind you, it’s not finished yet–I’ve got one more chapter, about ten pages to go) already nearly 126K?

I’ll repeat: fucking dragon.

But I think I’ve got it under control now. I’m going to be doing short projects for a while–a few DSP novellas, the final Jack & Teague– you know, stuff that doesn’t seize my by the throat and throw me back against the trashed kitchen table and say, “Write me, damn you!” (Okay–the last Jack & Teague might be the exception to that rule… we’ll see!) Anyway, I am (wisely, I hope) putting off writing Quickening for a few months. I think I need to give the dragon cave a break from long projects for a bit, let it air out, get rid of the dragon crap, clean the kitchen table, that sort of thing, before I dive back in. Besides. A lot of projects lose their ‘zing’ when the character is put in the position Lady Cory was at the end of Rampant. I’m going to REALLY need my skill and my motherhood skills to make sure the series doesn’t jump the shark with this next one. I’m going to have to give it some thought so that everybody stays true to themselves and nobody becomes cardboard cutouts.

You want to see a dragon hunting party? Man, just fuck with that thing’s eggs!

(And ignore the subtle hiss of ‘Living Promises’ in the uncurling of serpentine scales. That project will wait… I swear… it will wait… Jeff and Collin will wait… please, dammit, back, damn you, stay away from my cave!)

Off to go feed the dragon– and knit a sweater.

Hopefully he doesn’t have a taste for wool.