That's what I keep telling myself.

I want to have a manuscript done by Christmas. I've given myself the freedom to roam, and I've worked on a lot of good things, started a lot of interesting novels and learned a lot about my writing style in the process - but I just realized that Taking the Reins came out more than a year ago. And I don't have a finished first draft of anything remotely close to follow up on it with.

If you're reading this and wagging your finger at me, I get it. I never meant to take this long between books; in fact, my goal after I finished Taking the Reins was to churn out at least two books a year. I wrote that in five months (first draft), and Circles in the Dust I wrote in three. I thought I had enough ideas to keep myself going at that pace. I was done with school, I had all this time I could use to bust out those future novels...

I'm glad that I took some time to work without too much pressure, to explore some new ideas. I'm ready to get something out there, though. I'm sure you are too. I'm sure you're thinking I should be working on my next book right now, rather than writing this... and you're probably right. But it's late, and I'll be damned if I'm going to miss a day posting here. I swore I wouldn't do that, and this is the one area of my writing life that's maintaining any real discipline.

So to update, I'm working hard on a novel that I'm tentatively calling The Tinkers. I've been slaving away at my typewriter, and transcribing some of the manuscript as it stands at night, so I hope to have a little taste of that on my site soon. My goal is to have the first draft done by the year's end. I think I'll make it. It's a good story too; I was pleasantly surprised when I picked it up again, and I think it will be a good one.