After Christmas

      Did you have a good Christmas? I did despite everything. Christmas Eve, my friend Randall stopped by. We watched your typical Christmas movies -- Robocop, Aliens, Forbidden Planet, etc.; nothing says Merry Christmas like blood, bullets and alien mayhem -- until two in the morning, then I went to bed while he suffered on my too-small couch. (Belatedly I realize I should have offered to sleep on the couch so he could have my bed. Sorry, Randall.)
      Randall left around noon Christmas Day after we watched another movie. (Randall doesn't have cable at his home so he likes to spend quality time with my remote when he visits.) After he left, I went over my friend K.J.'s house and had Christmas dinner with him and his lovely wife and family. A lot of family. Their children, his and her parents, and her sister and brother-in-law and their children. Good food, good conversation and good times.
      Then I went home and napped between watching old movies on Turner Classic Movies. That was my Christmas day. And it was fine.
      Actually Christmas is still going on for me. Tonight my siblings and most of their families will be arriving at my house for a Christmas gathering. They will return to their own homes tomorrow. Because of my back, I am unable to travel very far -- sitting in the car is terribly painful and eventually my right side goes numb -- so they all decided to come here. They're staying in a hotel tonight, and then we will have breakfast and maybe lunch together before they head back to eastern and northwestern Oklahoma.
      We haven't had Christmas yet with Mikey and his mom, but hope to this weekend. Mikey might be coming to stay with us for a couple of days starting with New Year's Day. I hope so. I miss the little guy. Naturally we have plenty of presents under the tree for him. I ... uh ... sort of overbuy for him. Hey, I like toy shopping. It's fun.
      New Year's Day is also when I kick off my new writing plan. My intent is to add several thousand words to Darkness, Oklahoma and to get Murder at the Witch's Cottage sent off to a couple of publishers before I have to start directing The Vigil for the local theater group in February. The Vigil will take up my time until the last weekend in March, and then I will take up the writing schedule again with the aim of finishing Darkness, Oklahoma by the end of May. I'll spend June editing and polishing it. The first week of July, it will go to my first readers -- Crystal, Frenzied Feline, Randall and Michelle (Yes, I know you volunteered months and months back, but I'm figuring it's still valid) -- for their comments and corrections. I'll spend the rest of July editing it, and then it will be mailed to a publisher and/or agent on my birthday in July, a great present to myself.
      In among that, I will be writing on Dragons Gather, mailing Murder at the Witch's Cottage off to other play publishers if it -- God forbid -- gets rejected, finishing a humor book titled How I Fell In Love With A Floozy And Other Stories and that I intend to self-publish, continuing to publish the family newsletter, and finally finishing and editing the play Figments.
      When Darkness, Oklahoma is mailed off in July, I'll aim the writing schedule toward Dragons Gather. I'd like to finish it by end of the year. I will also be participating in National Novel Writing Month in November again, this time with an outline and better story. Not that I've completely given up on Tin Man Dark, but I doubt that I can save more than a few thousand words of what I wrote on TMD. There are some cool ideas in TMD and a couple of strong characters, but the plot makes no sense, the bad guys are bad for the sake of being bad, the love affair is clumsy and unbelievable, etc. I might not be able to salvage it or it might not be worth my time to try. We'll see how it goes.
      My NaNo novel for 2007 will be Red Hot Sinner Man. I wrote a couple of scenes for it a couple of years ago, but never worked on a plot or anything else concerning it. It's a contemporary novel, no fantasy, no science fiction. Just a funny (I hope) and heartwarming (I really hope) story of office workers and how they learn to live life fully.
      Sounds busy, doesn't it? Maybe overwhelming. But I have the tasks cut up into smaller bits each day. I think it's all possible. I can do it. I will do it ... I hope ... barring unforeseen things, of course and all the usual weaseling ... Talk to you later!