Major "Duh" Moment

So...I'm backing up all of my documents, figuring out which ones to burn to CD and which ones to keep on the hard drive when I see...AH! A Christmas short story I finished and never submitted (well, I entered it in a contest and it didn't win). It has a "needs revision" note on it....

I reread it...it's short (4500 words) and very sweet. Not my typical genre, but the ending brought tears to my eyes and I felt a little like the writer in Romancing the Stone as she bawls over her own manuscript.

Anyway...what to do with the darn thing? Then, I got a wonderful idea, give it to my readers free for a Christmas gift! I e-mailed Deanna, who agreed AND added the simply terrific idea of putting excerpts and teases at the back!

Unfortunately, to do this...there's been a few "but firsts" to get done with it. I sent it out for critique and got those changes back but haven't input them yet.

Then I realized I'd have to do my own cover for it (thank you hubby and his spare copy of Adobe Photoshop from the old computer we just got rid of) -- but thanks to that, I've wasted sooooo much time surfing pictures and putting together covers, I can see how it gets addicting!

Next, get it all pretty and go see if I can round up a free PDF converter to make it into an e-book.

I want it all done by 1 Dec...and Mojave Moon is going to be longer than I expected (possibly 25-30K!), so it doesn't look like I'll finish it much before the new year. So I won't be submitting to EC this year unless a miracle occurs. Oh well....

Barring a Stunning Breakthrough Tomorrow...

I'd say I'll be foregoing the Golden Heart after all.

I had the day off today courtesy of the remnants of a migraine which, believe me, wasn't bad enough to explain why my word count went backwards and I added only three paragraphs worth keeping.

I'm forcing it and it's not working. And there's no way I'm entering something that's not ready just because I paid my $50. I need to go back to writing something I'm enjoying. This isn't it.

Which is a shame because it's my only full-length historical and that market's hot now. But I can't make myself feel the story for the market. It's either there or it's not and right now, it's SO not.