Hello, rest of August

There you are! Eight whole glorious days (except for this weekend, and next Tuesday, when I have Q-duty) in which to:

1. clean out my bedroom
2. write a short story
3. clean out my office
4. proof SS #1: F
5. write approximately 35,000 words for the conclusion of Camp NaNoWriMo

Just kidding about that last one. If I do finish everything else, I will go back to my NaNo draft, but I bear no illusions that I’ll finish it, or even get 50k on it.

Still, I feel like I’ve really gotten into the swing of work this month. I feel like Q is finally on a regular schedule, and I’ve been productive and proud of my writing.For the last little-over-a-week, I’ve been doing the copyedits for For Darkness Shows the Stars, and reading it over again and making all those little this-is-the-last-time-I-swear adjustments just have me giddy all over again. I love this book so much. It makes me thrill, it makes me cry*, it makes me be totally unbearable with teasing you poor people since it won’t come out for another nine-plus months.

Nine. Months. Kill me now, y’all.

And the news does not get better from here, sadly. The anthology** I thought was coming out this summer, and then this winter? I just got a release date of March 2012 for the U.S. MARCH.

And I thought the Zombies vs. Unicorns paperback would be out soon, but Amazon is telling me April. And then I learned that the Ascendant paperback won’t be out until then either. And so I have absolutely nothing on the docket for 2011 (except for the “Best of” reprint) at all. Which makes me feel very sad, and dull, and thumb-twiddly. I know I shouldn’t be, since I do have a new novel and like five other things coming out in 2012, and I know this is my “just had a baby, things are still a bit topsy turvy” building year, but this is the first time in five years that I haven’t celebrated the summer with a new book release, so what I know and what I feel are not occupying the same space in my head right now.

The best method I’ve found to combat that, btw, is to work harder. So hopefully I can look back in December and go, “Yeah, I didn’t have a book out. But look, I wrote like three of them!”

Need to get on that.***

I leave you with this painting, shamelessly stolen from Lauren Dane’s tumblr, even though I’m almost positive this “Persuasion” has nothing to do with my Jane’s Persuasion:

Weirdly hot, right?

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* I hope it makes you cry, too, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m an easy mark in this case because frickin’ Persuasion makes me cry every single time I read it. So there are already all these strong Pavlovian Persuasion-crying associations in my brain.

** On the upside, I also just found out that William Sleator is going to be in it. WIlliam Sleator (rest in peace). Wiliam. Sleator! You guys. You guys. My mom recognized that name. Sailor Boy went, “You’re in an antho with William Sleator? He’s what got me into reading SF.” Which means William Sleator is responsible for me and Sailor Boy getting together, because when we met in college, it was bonding over SF. Which means WIlliam Sleator is also responsible for Queenie. And now I’m in an anthology with him, even though I will sadly never be able to meet him in person.

*** I have, however, written over 80,000 words this year on various works of fiction. I know. I didn’t believe it either until I looked at my word count meters. That’s like a whole book (But in my case, it’s half a book, then part of another book, then four short stories.)