Oh Look! Another Blogging Challenge Approaches!

We're nearing the end of January. What have I been doing?

Writing

I'm about 20k into the next cozy mystery. Did I have an outline? Sort of. Did I immediately deviate from that outline in chapter one? Yes. Have I mostly stuck to the outline? Weirdly, yes. Maybe I'm learning to outline after all. Or maybe things are about to go completely off the rails. I guess we'll find out!

I also wrote a short story that I really like which I intend to submit to an anthology. This year I'd like to submit to more anthologies — I write about two short stories every month anyhow (for my Patreon), so it would be nice to do something with those. If I find some anthologies to aim for, then I won't have to come up with my own writing prompts.

Fosters

This week I have two: one long-term and the other just for the week.

Gnocchi is seven years old and she dealt with the stress of the shelter by collecting caution stickers. She's been here almost the entire month and she's fine, other than being prone to overstimulation if you aren't careful. She'll make someone a great cat even though getting her in front of potential adopters is going to be a pain.

We have been doing clicker training. So far her repertoire consists of "touch", "kennel", and "sit". She's still iffy on those last two, but she enjoys the training sessions.

My other foster is Mister, who is staying in the spare bedroom while his regular foster mom is on vacation. Mister has some mild medical issues and a terminal case of Resting Astonished Face.

I love fostering small kittens, but I'm enjoying the simplicity of older fosters who don't mind if I sleep in every morning.

February is almost here

February is Thingadailies, the blogging challenge to make something every day and write a blog post about it. In past years I've done origami, paving stones, a chapter of a book each day (which became Death Walks a Dog), image manipulation, fake book covers, and some other things I can't remember.

This year I think I'll be bouncing around to different projects:

• real book covers (especially a new cover for Shift Happens)
• book trailers (I'd like to get comfortable with video editing)
• maybe some YouTube shorts? I did an Instagram Live interview recently and being on camera was weird.
• probably other stuff I haven't thought about yet

So there we go. More to come in just a few days!