To Sleep, Perchance To Avoid Writing

I toted 300 12-foot length lumber boards from trailer to garage at my jobsite yesterday and immediately konked out when I got home. Exciting life, eh? Now I missed my two hours of writing time.

For those of you asking me what Viking Dude is about, emailing me that it doesn't sound like a romantic spy intrigue--well, it's not. Viking Dude is an urban fantasy/alternative fantasy. I started it while writing for Mira Books and awaiting their decision on Virtually Hers. Since I couldn't submit any romantic suspense while under contract, I decided to try my hand at writing another genre. My current favorite books are from the urban fantasy genre, especially those with heavy romantic elements, and Viking Dude seems to be walking in that direction, using many of the themes you find in UF.

It's first POV, male, and yes, the hero is/was a Viking. He's a dude in the Present. But he has powers that makes him very attractive to magic-practicing people. No, he's not a vampire. Or a werewolf. Or any kind of shape-shifting alpha. In fact, he isn't quite sure what he is, except that he can manipulate time in certain ways, and as the story progresses, he isn't even sure whether he wants to find out what he is.

If you've been following the blog, I talked about an editor wanting to see more than the proposal and first chapter my agent sent out, so I'm trying to polish and tighten up Chapters Two and Three quickly, quickly, quickly. And ya, I've been trying very hard to write and rewrite and edit and rewrite while I'm on my four hour commute to and from my job site, but it hasn't been easy. It's hard to concentrate with a noisy truck swerving back and forth among heavy traffic. Can I spell constant headache and back cramps?

Then I went and konked out last night. Argh.

On the good news front, I've gotten another order from the Australian bookseller for Big Bad Wolf, which brings total sales to 380 books. We're nearing 400 copies, woohoo! Of course, that's like a drop in the bucket compared to the sales number of my other books, LOL. I know there are many who push self-publishing as the next zen of publishing history, but really, if you aren't Stephen King, you aren't going to sell enough copies to justify a career. BBW is considered as having done quite well, by the way, considering that it had barely any publicity whatsoever. Thanks to word-of-mouth by many of you, my wonderful readers, it's still selling every week! I'm hoping to celebrate the 400th sale next week, so you know what to do...word-of-mouth. ;-D

While I work on Viking Dude for the editor, the anthology of short stories about the SEALs is on hold but it'll be my next project, I promise...unless something Big comes up, like Virtually Hers/One or Viking Dude getting sold. Then I'm going Not Ever Sleep Again because I need to write, write, write like a maniac.

So, what have you been stressing about lately?

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