Winter, Puppies and Rewrites, Oh My!

I know that when I have the urge to start all my blog posts with, "I know it's been a while, but I'm still alive,"it means that I suck at this blogging thing. THIS time, though, I have good excuses...er...reasons.

I have been writing. A lot.

Okay, currently, I'm stalled on Chapter Seventeen, but I've written a metric crap ton of words since the last post. Granted, around 85% of those words are collecting dust in a file titled "Misc. Pieces," but I wrote 'em, dammit!

I probably would be much further along, but this happened:



Meet Luca, the newest member of our family. She's a Jack Russell mix that we adopted from our local Humane Society about a month ago. Don't let that sweet face fool you. Satan lives inside that pup.

Ever since we brought her home, my writing time has become wrangling the puppy, making sure she doesn't poo on the rug or torture the cats too much, time (let it be known that I have failed at one or more of those things on a many occasions. Potty training a puppy in the winter is HARD!).

Things are getting easier now that we've adjusted to basically having a toddler running through the house. Let me tell you, it doesn't matter just HOW clean you think your house is, a puppy will set you straight in a heartbeat. I don't even know where she finds the things she chews on!

On the writing front, now that I've adjusted to the pup, I have written two chapters and rewritten the same chapter about five times. I'm tackling that chapter again this afternoon before I head to work and crossing my fingers that this is it. Wish me luck.

I've also submitted five chapters to my writing group for our next meeting. The other ladies are otherwise occupied with various writing tasks (and making lots of progress!), so I'm the only one turning in pages this month. It's sort of nerve wracking to have all the attention on me and what may or may not be some good shit. Even so, I'm looking forward to their thoughts. I'm actually very excited about some of those chapters.

I think I'm onto something good with this story, after a bajillion years writing it. It feels good. Really good. And scary as hell.

Anyway, how have YOU been? Getting lots of writing done? Are you surviving this horrible winter?