I know it's been a while, but I HAVE BEEN DOING STUFF, I SWEAR. Since my last update, it feels like I've done nothing but sleep, re-read fluffy comfort romances, and putter around doing nothing, but in reality I:

1. Worked with one of my talented cover artists (HI, RACHEL!) to put together a new cover on my holiday SF Romance novella Joining In the Round. (Pic at the bottom of the post)
2. Organized all our DVDs into genres and put them in binders alphabetical by title.  All of them. HUndreds and HUNDREDS of movies. I gave up and bought spindles for NCIS & Game of Thrones. It was more space-efficient.
3. Made multiple batches of multiple cookie doughs for Christmas & baked some blueberry cobbler.
4. Enjoyed a long adventure day downtown with Spouseman
5. went to Gumbo Fiction Salon & read the last segment of my sparkly short story aloud. HAd a great time hanging with friends & hearing great readings.
6. finished the verb tense changes on said story, fixed some plot inconsistencies, polished the wording down  below 7500 words, and formatted the story for submission. That last part is HELLISH, because putting a manuscript into Courier font and replacing italics with underlining renders it unreadable. I do not exaggerate. It might as well be Sanskrit or cuneiform to me.
7. Found a willing proofer to read the story in its formatted condition. He spotted the last few typos (mostly missing words) that I can never catch and confirm that it all still makes sense. SO IT'S DONE. It goes to Clarkesworld for rejection consideration ASAP. I'll keep the world posted on its adventure travels after that.
8. Got rid of a bunch of old, expired & unusable junk. No, really. I cleaned out kitchen cabinets, desk drawers, a shelf in the linen closet, and the stand freezer. Among other things. It was highly satisfying to let go of waste that took up useful space.
9. Put up all the holiday decorations, including a new tree from a vendor my Dad suggested. It came pre-lit with candy sprinkle-colored LED lights, and it's gorgeous.  All three main rooms of the house are festive now. Makes me want people to come over and just hang out doing whatever.
10. I haven't done much writing other than The Short Story I Took Forever To Finish, but hey. At least I was working on writing? Yeah, I am going to be kind to myself about that. So there.

So anyway,  it was an eventful week.  When the sun is up for less than 8 hours, though. time slips away FAST no matter what I'm working on. So I don't feel the progress.Anyway. Here's one picture of Scooter being cute and one of the shiny new novella cover.Yes, it's a holiday romance. Sorta. It's definitely a holiday warm & fuzzy story about found family and love of many kinds. You can buy it by clicking here: mybook.to/JoiningRound