There’s a few tweaks left to do, but I’m happy with the look and feel of the new site. With all this network admin business at my job, I forgot I like coding, and did quite a lot of it the last few days. Feedback and comments are welcome, so feel free to chime in.
Although the Final Three are working hard on their suggestions–well, two of them anyway, the third won’t get their packet until Wednesday–I’m off for the rest of the weekend.

Now that the novel is en route to the Final Three for feedback and comments, a few stats caught my attention.

Writing time: 25 months
Pages: 340
Drafts: 4
Word count: 88,880 << eights are good luck, eh? The site overhaul continues, and is happening in the background as I write this entry. Hopefully by Friday I'll cut over to the new design.

Lived in heads down revision/read/reread mode for a few days now, an effort which is progressing well. The drop date for the Final Three slid back a week, but I can live with that. I have to, actually. Open House is Sunday, so for the fifth weekend in a row, it’s another no day or one day off type of deal. But my job should not cause further any delays.

One lesson I learned recently about finding time for writing is to force myself through chores on work nights. Loading up Saturday and Sundays with tasks shirked during the week virtually guarantees I’ll have neither energy nor the enthusiasm for it. And that’s a shame, because I can get a lot done in ten hour tears. So instead of letting household duties fester, I tackle them after work, even if doing so cuts into downtime, or infringes on the one or two hours reserved for writing. At worst freeing up the weekend means dedicated time for relaxation, taking pictures, hiking, etc.

Soon as I finish the novel edits, I’m going to turn the site upside and down and revamp the design. I meant to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress for the past month. Haven’t coded in forever, so diving in headfirst will be interesting.

Wrote down a list of places to submit The Stash—a short story I wrote in late August. One very unlike me, very horror. Contests seem like a natural fit for it, because at worst they guarantee responses—a treat in publishing—and on the winning end come with a check and publicity. But there’s a few magazines that make sense to aim for, too.

Finished the draft six days behind schedule, but acceptable given developments of late. The next step is to read through the manuscript start to finish twice and revise as necessary–this should take about seven days–and hand off to The Final Three.

More on this later. Right now, I’m wiped out. But happy.