Opportunity and Challenges

It’s midterm week again. I comfort myself with the knowledge that I just have one more year of classes to finish this MBA, but for now, the difficulty remains in finding enough hours in the day to do all the things I need to and want to do. For this week, that meant zombie-fication: I never got to sleep before 1:30am, and still had to manage to be in the office every day by 9. 6 hours does not do a body good.

I had hoped to catch up on sleep this weekend, but I’ve been getting some very good feedback on my short stories, and keep feeling compelled to tweak them. That brings me to the opportunity half of Einstein’s insight (in the quote to the right): I think I’m going to be able to release the Hallow’s Eve Triptych Wednesday. It’s a month later than planned, but it was one of my major goals for this Round (and I had to get past that horrible bug!) so I’m pleased it’s still happening.

My challenge with this collection of ghost- and supernatural-driven stories is that they don’t feel like standard horror to me–particularly because I’m not a fan of slasher-style horror and have a hard time thinking of the genre as anything other than that. In reviewing the classification options on KDP, then, I’m thinking that while the original request that inspired the set of stories was for horror shorts, these fall more under the “ghost” and “occult & supernatural” categories. Still not the standard genres I’ve written in before, but a fun deviation for me nonetheless.

My real thrill for the week came Friday, when all of a sudden there were a few sales of Angel Mine in Germany, and that story entered the top 100 sellers for Anthologies! I could hardly contain myself when I saw that the book I was listed next to had Anne McCaffrey as one of its contributors. I hadn’t consciously recognized that piece of what has driven me, but being in the same list as one of your idols is not to be underestimated as a motivator. Especially when I had just reported two weeks ago on Gayla’s and Dionne’s success in those genre best-seller lists. So: To those buyers who helped me feel that excitement: THANK YOU SO MUCH! VIELEN DANK, ALLERSEITS! 🙂

As with all thrills, this one too appears ephemeral, as that cluster of sales didn’t seem to drive any additional interest, and the ranking has slid from that high all weekend.

This morning, then, I woke up stiff and sore, I think because I have not had a chance to walk, or do anything other than sit my butt in a chair to stare at computer monitors either for work, school, or writing. I hope that changes this week, as we’ll be visiting family in Virginia for Thanksgiving, where the weather is supposed to be a little more inviting than the arctic blast we’ve endured here.

That also means that while my exercise goals may be met, I’m not sure I’ll have time to get back to Fire to Dragon, or do much other than finalize the three shorts for publication, and keep up with the ubiquitous school assignments. I will be counting any words as an unexpected bonus, and will do what I can to relax and enjoy the super-long holiday weekend we’ve managed to arrange.

In the meantime, check out how everyone else is doing on their goals.