It's the middle of the month, time for a project update.

Current active projects:

UK Horror Project
(cowritten with Sarah)

1. Talking Dead
Young adult supernatural adventure. Ghosts, monsters, and killers, oh my. Status: Fourth draft in progress. Fourth draft combines Talking Dead and Monsters & Magic into one book. We generally write one chapter a writing session, and try to have at least one session a week though we've each had to cancel a few sessions, so while this seems like slow going compared to 2014, it's actually moving along quite well.

(Monsters & Magic used to be #2. Young adult supernatural adventure. Flirtatious werewolves and incorporeal monsters.)

2. Supernatural Slumber Party
Young adult supernatural adventure. It's a slumber party of supernaturals, see? Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete.

3. Wicked Witches
Young adult supernatural adventure. Witches, dude, always with the witches. And the world goes BOOM. Status: First draft complete. Second draft on hold until Talking Dead draft four complete. Second draft combines Wicked Witches and Monster Mash into one book.

(The Monster Mash used to be #5. Young adult supernatural adventure. The world goes BOOM.)

Stand Alone Books

1. Monsters in the Trees
Young adult horror. Friends, makeouts, and monsters in an isolated cabin. Status: Draft one in progress. Slow progress. I need to do some more outlining on paper, I think, before I sit down at the computer again. We'll see if that helps.

2. Winter Cabin
New adult or adult paranormal romance. Flirtations and sexy times while snowed in interrupted by monsters and mayhem. Status: Draft one nearly complete. Though not as nearly as it should be. I hit the end of the outline around the end of March as planned, and then realized there's probably another 15k of story to write. Good times. (This will go under the pseud if it is published.) Got stuck partway through April, had to go back and reoutline in May to figure out where I went wrong. Just about to start the last 15k again off the new outline.

3. Monsters and Music
Young adult horror. Ghosts and werewolves, oh my. (witches and dead people and haunted things, too.) Status: Draft two in progress. Had an epiphany about the main romantic relationship, which I think will help structure the story.

4. Frozen World Fantasy
Adult fantasy. Brainstorming and talking to JBJ, another fantasy author, about how to write a fantasy novel. Doing some research on the writing side, working through world building before I start outlining.

It has been particularly hard to write lately. Hard to do anything. I'm in the middle of a pretty nasty bipolar cycle, and I am not doing very well. I haven't been doing well for a long, long time, though.

Current active projects include:

The UK Horror Series isn't off this list because it's complete, unfortunately, but because my cowriter needed to take a break.

Stand Alones

Werewolves in Love
New adult romance. Werewolves, murders, and the constant sea. Status: Outline complete, first draft in progress.

Monsters & Music
Young adult supernatural mystery. Werewolves, murders, and teen witches. Status: Outline in progress, first draft in progress.

Love in the Time of Percussion
New adult romance. Marching bands, rock bands, and snarky flirtations. Status: Outline in progress.

Sex, Love & Drums
Young adult contemporary romance. Status: Outline in progress.

Chase the Sun
Young adult contemporary. Sisters on a road trip. Status: Outline in progress.

Monsters in the Trees
Young adult horror. Friends, makeouts, and monsters in an isolated cabin. Status: Brainstorming.

Race the Drums
Young adult contemporary. Marching band can save a life, if he lets it.

Essays

Nothing currently in draft form, but I'm starting to make notes about a series of essays about my experiences with bipolar.

February has been rough. I'm still sick, and today we got hit by a snowstorm. Nothing on the northeast USA, but bad enough. It's cold, it's gross, I still have an ear infection (though I'm coming to the end of my antibiotics, and I am starting to feel better), and in general, it's just kind of blah. I'm trying to focus on the positives, and one of those positives is always my writing, no matter how it is going.

Current active projects include:

UK HORROR SERIES
(This series cowritten with Sarah.)

1: Talking Dead
Young adult supernatural adventure. Ghosts, vampires, killers, oh my. Status: Second draft complete and with early readers. Outline for the third draft completed, rewrite well under way.

2: Monsters & Magic
Young adult supernatural adventures. Flirtatious werewolves and incorporeal monsters. Status: Second draft outlined, on hold until draft three of Talking Dead is complete. Also retitled, because music is no longer an applicable word.

3: Supernatural Slumber Party
Young adult supernatural adventures. It's a slumber party of supernaturals, see? Status: First draft complete. Editing.

4: Wicked Witches
Young adult supernatural adventures. Witches, dude. Always with the witches. Status: First draft complete. Editing.

5: The Monster Mash
Young adult supernatural adventures. The world goes BOOM. Status: First draft complete. Editing.

STAND ALONES

Love in the Time of Percussion
New adult romance. Marching bands, rock bands, and snarky flirtations. Status: Outline in progress.

Sex, Love & Drums
Young adult contemporary romance. Status: Outline in progress.

Chase the Sun
Young adult contemporary. Sisters on a road trip. Status: Outline and first draft in progress.

ESSAYS

Looking for places to pitch a couple essays, one of which is about WWE Divas, commentators, and the online wrestling community.

Nearly the middle of the month yet again!

( Project List, November 2013 )

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It is the middle of the month again!

( Project List, October 2013 )

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It's that time of the month again!

( Project List September 2013 )

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Life has been good, but busy. New dog, my beloved Izzy; new furniture, my beloved red leather sectional; new kitchen supplies, including a gorgeous dishware set; and lots of work and writing. Clearly, I'm not going to be able to always post this on the same day of the month, but I'll aim for the 15th and get as close as I can.

( Project List August 2013 )

Sarah has finally convinced me to start watching WWE. Her reasons: (1) one of our projects is inspired by pro wrestling and I probably need to have a better understanding of it (True); and (2) the Usos are hot (VERY VERY TRUE). (To be fair, Craig was the one who actually decided the Usos would be able to tempt me into watching, and he was correct.) They watch all the pay-per-views, and the past couple, we've watched the free pre-show together over Skype. It's a lot of fun. I still find a lot of it super cheesy, but in an entertaining way. And I love analyzing the storylines and trying to break down why they're doing what they're doing. (The writing project side of watching.) But as Sarah has been pointing out for years, it's actually pretty shocking that I didn't watch it sooner, because I love big guys hitting each other. Unf.

Despite being seriously sick today, life is pretty good.

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Inspired by seanan_mcguire and my love of her monthly "Current Project" posts, I have decided to start doing my own again, this time on or around the 15th of the month (with the hopes that seeing her posts will remind me to do mine).

( Project List July 2013 )

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ETA Lovecraftian Shenanigans cowriter just messaged me with this blurb for it (complete with DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER VOICE!): In a WORLD where HOT DUDES have TENTACLES, WATCH OUT for NUZZLING RAT-MONSTERS!

Bwahaha. And now I can vent to her about this ableist thing I just read instead of blowing up online or being up half the night sitting on my hands so I won't blow up online.

So it's been almost two years since I regularly updated the monthly project updates, but it is time to start them again, because I get a lot more done when I keep track of my writing in a variety of ways.

This month, I thought I'd kick it off with a fun thing, too. When I’m in traffic, to entertain myself, once in awhile I'll come up with blurbs for my fiction writing projects. (I create them for my nonfiction writing projects, too, but mostly those are confidential, so I can’t really talk about them even if you were interested in legal writing projects.) I even say them aloud in a DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER voice, sometimes.

(Sometimes the music is up too loud for that.)

So for this month's project update, I thought I'd include some of the recent blurbs. I recommend giving them your own DRAMATIC MOVIE ANNOUNCER voice.

( Monthly Project Update )

So what are you working on right now?

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