Lots of work to keep me busy

Recently, I updated the “Current Projects” page on my web site. This list includes books I am currently working on that may or may not be under contract. Nevertheless, I am still working on them all the same.

The list looked something like this:

• Writing a book on haunted cities.

• Writing a MG paranormal mystery series. (Currently revising Book One.)

• Writing a book on prayer. Working title: The Praying Life. (Ongoing.)

• Writing a health book on making positive changes in your life. Working title: Change Your Life NOW! (Ongoing)

• Co-writing a book with Martha Jette on alien abductions titled Terror in the Night. (Ongoing.)

• Wrote a children's book about upcycling. (Illustrations pending.)
  

As I reviewed that list after that site went live again, it struck me that I was juggling 6 books at a time.

Wow! Six books?? Really?

I try to keep that number low. But, alas, that has not happened.

What was a small book that I thought I’d just whip together and throw out to my publisher ended up becoming a BIGGER project. New chapters have been added and more research will need to be done. So this is a book project that is actually going to take me a while to complete.

And while I had plans to submit a book every month this year, it seems those plans have been changed, as well. I won’t be able to complete everything in time to have a submission ready to go for this month as well as following months, so I no longer will be submitting something every month for the rest of the year.

Also, because I work offline as well as online, I keep printouts of incomplete work in my “writing notebook.” This way, I can pull something out when I have the time (and the computer is not available) and work on it there. In order to stay on top of things, I made a list of all of the ongoing and nearly-complete book projects I am currently working on. This list of projects includes books I am not planning to submit for several months (like late next year).

And that list looked pretty different from what’s on my web site!

Because, it turns out, I have other ongoing book projects as well:

• A poetry book for soldiers

• The essay collection on deaf parenting (I am adding new essays)

• The second and third installment in the “Revise Your Writing” series (I count this as one manuscript).

• Another poetry book (Wandering Soul – it is semi-finished but I am leaving this one “open” in case I want to add more poems).

So, in essence, that is 10 books altogether which I am juggling.

Wow! Ten!

Of course, this does not mean that some projects will “slip through the cracks.” Some books take priority over the others (haunted cities, Terror in the Night, revising the first GHOST Group book and the health book), and when I have work for them, I will of course make that book a priority and work on it as often as I can.

And, at least in this way, I will ALWAYS have work to do. As it is, while I’ve worked on the GG revisions, the health book, TITN and haunted cities, I’ve had essays for the deaf parenting book stuck in my head for days, as well as ideas for stuff to write/research for the praying book. So I will get around to getting caught up on that eventually. There is work waiting for me, all right. More book work. A lot of book work, actually.

A friend once remarked that being an author is a lot like a job for me. Boy, she wasn’t kidding. Maybe it’s not so bad that I can’t get a job or a gig right now, or that the publishing company doesn’t have any manuscripts for me to edit right now. Because right now, I am indeed busy with this “job.” (I am also a mother, housekeeper, chief cook, bottle washer...) The only difference is that anything I earn for this job will come to me long after they are complete and published, and not before.