I hate it when this happens.  When writing projects conspire with each other and mutiny against my schedule, demanding at gunpoint that they be written in their own preferred order.  I hate it.  But I have submitted to their demands.

I have a vampire funeral story (yep, you heard right) that has been demanding to be written.  With the coming of Halloween anthologies, I gave in.  Ah, the story needed the Halloween tie in.  Damn, I’ll never be able to work on a deadline.

The novel is actually making progress, but not the direction I wanted.  I need a good leaping transition to get past the boring stuff.  Unfortunately I’ve buried myself in a scene that I can’t seem to escape.  That means backtracking and a lot more telling.  I need to squish five pages into three paragraphs.  To do so, I need to step away from the story.  I probably should jump to a later part of the story, like the part I feel rushed to be telling, but the vampire cries louder.  He does not, however, sparkle.

This story shouldn’t take more than a few days.  I hope to be back on the novel by Monday.  I wish I could dedicate more time to it in the next few days, but I have a trip to a state park tomorrow and my wife is shooting a wedding on Saturday.  *sigh*

I’m also going on vacation next week.  Like Nobu, I’m bringing my laptop.  However I don’t have any word count goals for the days we’re gone.  But if I don’t get moving on this novel, my first draft won’t be done before school starts and I sure won’t have a decent draft by the end of August.  I need to get my @$$ in gear.