* If you are ever taking the 103 bus through suburban Philadelphia toward the 69th street transit hub, don't do it while holding a giant cup of scalding hot coffee. My delicate hands are still smarting, thanks bumpy road!!

* The Stepsister Scheme is turning out to be more awesome then I had hoped. Oh dear. There are going to be five of these!! (Mr. Hines, I can't decide if I love your or hate you!)

* If you're a Requiem player and reading this, please go immediately and order your copy of Ancient Mysteries. I can honestly tell you at this point this is going to be the most beautifully produced thing White Wolf has yet put out. I was blown out if my seat by it, really. If you aren't a Requiem player, you should be.

*The word 'seemed' needs to be stricken from my language forever. Really. Done with it.

TTFN

Cinderella--whose real name is Danielle Whiteshore (nee Danielle de Glas)--does marry Prince Armand. And if you can ignore the pigeon incident, their wedding is a dream come true.

But not long after the "happily ever after," Danielle is attacked by her stepsister Charlotte, who suddenly has all sorts of magic to call upon. And though Talia--otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty--comes to the rescue (she's a martial arts master, and all those fairy blessings make her almost unbeatable), Charlotte gets away.

That's when Danielle discovers a number of disturbing facts: Armand has been kidnapped and taken to the realm of the Fairies; Danielle is pregnant with his child; and the Queen has her own very secret service that consists of Talia and Snow (White, of course). Snow is an expert at mirror magic and heavy duty flirting.

Can the three princesses track down Armand and extract both the prince and themselves from the clutches of some of fantasyland's most nefarious villains?

Between Tina and the ocean were sand dunes of staggering size. Everything was staggering size when you were just under two years old. She had not known salt water since the womb. Still, the ocean called. The trip through the dunes was winding and lined with tall alien beach grass and birds whos call were entirely unfamiliar too her. What was more, the trip promised a new adventure.

She looked up to her mother with bright eyes and asked without language for permission to adventure. The sun that warmed her face grew temporarily eclipsed by her mother's towering shadow. Mother studied daughter, and with eyes sqinting in the summer sun, she nodded. "Go ahead, baby. Run."

Tina let go of her mother's hand, toes digging into the sand, and ran to follow the curve of a dune as fast as her legs would let her.

If it's cool on the internet, you know I'm right there, doing it three years later. So, that said, here's what I got done last year and some goal setting for next year to make me feel bad at the end of 2009.

If you've got a year in review, link it to me in comments. If you've got goals for next year, link it to me so we can share successes together next year.

In no particular order:

1. I made money as a writer this year, and it didn't involve taking my figurative clothes off.

2. My daughter went from a baby to a genius in the course of a year. I'm going to call that my accomplishment.

3. My husband made money as a writer, again, that has something to do with me.

4. I finally feel like an adult with a house almost to the point I want it. Or at least, I got it to the point that I'm comfortable, and I can live with that.

5. We got my sister-in-law the fuck out of bumblefuck Ohio, and now she's starting a life out here in society.

6. Here's the big one: I SOLD over 100,000 words. Not wrote. Sold. (Hard to say how many words I wrote. I'll have a better idea next year.)

7. I got shit together to go back to school. Very anxious about it, but I guess it's the best way to step up my game. I hope.

I think I have more goals for next year then I have crap done this year, but that's how a career gets started, I guess.

1. Over all, I want to write about 250,000 words next year. That's a ton of short stories and gaming work. If I sell a percentage of that, it'll be awesome.

2. I'm going to get UnHero out to every agent and publisher in the free world until someone is dumb enough... Erm.. Clever enough to buy it and give me lots and lots of money.

3. I will get a few radio dramas up on the net for everyone to enjoy. I love the medium so much, and I have the technology. Time to get that show on the road.

4. With or as its own word count, I think I need to start another novel. Feels like time.

So that's last year and the next. What about you, what are you doing?

So, I took a look at my google calendar today, and after one last thing sent to the Pale Puppy this evening, I am solicitude deadline free. My first thought was 'WWWOOOHAGA! I'm done with all my deadlines.'

My second thought was, 'oh fuck! I'm out of deadlines!"

So it's back to the grind for me, waiting for all calls, tossing out pitches and submissions, waiting to hear on those. A lot of scrambling to hurry up and wait. Yeah, I love being a writer. Money might be an issue, but money is always an issue.

On the bright side, I can work on my own stuff again. (UnHero? I know you're there baby, we'll get you all cleaned up and ready to go by February, I promise. Jack? Yeah, I'll have that audio script done for you soon, I mean it.)

So if anyone out there is reading this, let's exchange leads, shall we? Where have you had luck, fiction, gaming, or otherwise?

Well, I was a bit upset a few days ago when I lost some shiny bottle-caps that I quite liked, but, I found 'em and ever since it's been damn good times. I'm feeling very very happy and I never felt healthier. I have a good life. Thank you! - Micheal J. Nelson MST3K

It's a nice way to put things in perspective, and Mike delivers it with this open faced sweetness that makes me want to cover him in strawberry colored lip gloss kisses. (Not a sexual thing, believe it or not.) Tragedy can be as big as your whole country being wiped out, but for most of us Internet postgenxers, it's usually more about having lost some shiny bottle caps.

Some days, I freak out over nothing. My head gets filled with nervous energy and there is no problem that can be solved, no matter how gargantuan or infinitesimal.

(ican'twritecan'tkeepthehouseglobalwarmingamaterrible

motherfriendwifeamsofatjesuschristcan'tmakegrilledcheese

withoutburningitcan'tdoanythingwritegasprices!)

On those days problems all become the same value, bottle caps if you will, and since I can't solve some of them immediately, none of them can be solved. I do my turkey-getting-her-head-cut-off-behind-Sara-Palin for a while. Somewhere along the way, I picture Micheal J. Nelson and his plain Minnesota-y manner talking about his shiny bottle caps. Bottle caps don't really matter. And in a zen like moment, all the bullshit I'm beating myself up with separates itself out and I can think like a human being again.

Thanks Mike.

I'm excited to say White Wolf has released some new titles I can name. World of Darkness Immortals has been announced, I wrote for that!

I'll also be doing two (yeah, two!) short SASs that go along with an upcoming Hunter title, it is way awesome. Nothing more on that, yet.

I feel like this is all writing progress, at least in that it's paying some bills.

That said, I'm thrilled to be working on Nano this year because it is writing for me. I'll have more thoughts on that as I go, but my goal this year is for consistant writing. I know I can churn out huge word counts in a small amount of time. At this point I need to get better at writing those magical 2,000 a day. So, starting all that silliness off, here's someone else's advice on how to write. Luckily, he's really cute!

My monster is alive over at Flames Rising. It's a fun little piece, and I'm excited to see it up. It was very wired to see my name next to Monty Cooke's on the Flame's Rising livejournal update. Does that give me geek cred? I hope so.

Most of the time I don't know where my inspiration comes from. Rarely, it comes from a movie, or a book or a conversation. In this case, I know exactly where it came from. A lot of JR's photography tells a story. Actually, a lot of it tells so complete a story that I rarely feel the need to write anything with it. In this case, I was fortunate enough that she left just enough room in her visual narrative for Eloise to be born in my brain.