Most years I finish the required novel the first week of the new year, turn it in, and become an exhausted, brain-dead slug. This year, that didn’t happen. I finished the novel and was happy with it. I worked on the SF Thriller until the revision notes came in and then I revised the novel, walking away from what is now the longest book of the series feeling chipper and only the usual degree of day-end tired. I was going to go back to the SF Thriller, but got sidetracked by a couple of personal projects…

Read the rest on the blog.

I no longer have an excuse for being pudgy and slow moving.

So… Jawa or Jedi?

Cast your vote on the blog!

Well. I’m done. The revision and read-through of REVENANT is complete and the file has been sent to my editor and agent. Now I go to work on short stories, taxes, unpacking the last of my boxes and playing with my dogs. Until the copyedit returns.

Well, the REVENANT revision is now done. Word count rose by 10,000 words–which is a lot–bringing the total for the manuscript to 131,000 words. If my editor has no problem with that, it’ll be the longest Greywalker novel ever to make it to press (Grey #1 was 137K in the first draft, but I cut 25K in the many revisions that followed.) It’s been pretty difficult and I spent all of Tuesday on the final chapter alone. I’m putting it aside for a few days and then I’ll read it through starting on Thursday. I hope it’s good–it seems to be, but I may be too tired to tell. If all’s well, it goes off to my editor on Sunday/Monday and I’m done for a few weeks–until the copyedit comes back.

Meanwhile… gotta do my taxes. #revision

I’m busily updating my Tour page with some events that are upcoming very soon!

A nifty e-Bay auction to win an all-day personalized workshop and hang-out with 7 Seattle writers (including me), and an upcoming Setting Workshop at Foolscap at the end of the month. Check out the page to say up to date on all the Kat Happenings.

Handed in the final Greywalker novel, REVENANT, Monday at 1 am. And now I have received the hardcopy proofs for the mass market paperback edition of POSSESSION. Bye-bye leisure time.

So, there’s a lot of discussion around about awards–it’s that time of year for writers, the last chance to get your work on the nomination lists for the Big Awards. It’s a really confusing and upsetting thing to work in an industry that’s so much in flux that it’s impossible to keep track of what’s out there, much less what’s eligible (see Mary Robinette Kowal’s article about why her wonderful audio The Lady Astronaut of Mars was not eligible, in spite of seeming to be). I, personally think it’s a hair-split that’s ridiculous, but it’s in the past now. However, new rounds of “nominate me” are in the works and both Mary (whom I adore) and John Scalzi (whom I respect and like very much) have posted about the whole problem of pimping your work for awards, because we writer-peeps are kind of creeped out by the whole “Look at me!!!” aspect of this sometimes. Both are excellent bits of common sense and “Please stop freaking” (and they both write a damn fine story.) See Scalzi’s article here. And Mary’s here.

And so with that in mind, I am going to say this: I had three publications last year. One was a reprint of last year’s book and it’s not eligible for anything. But one was a new hardcover novel (Possesion) and the other was a short story (“The Hollow Hounds”).

Possession (Greywalker novel #8 from Roc) was a good book and it was fun, but probably not much of contender against all the other Fantasy and Science Fiction novels that came out last year–it really was an amazing year for the genre.

But the short story, “The Hollow Hounds” was one I really liked, and the anthology, Clockwork Fairy Tales (edited by Stephen L. Antczak and James C. Bassett from Roc), was unusual and well-done. And aside from my story (which I thought rather nifty) it had a great line up of steampunk fairy tales from some amazing writers (K.W. Jeter, Jay Lake, Paul di Fillippo, Stephen Harper, Nancy A. Collins, G.K. Hayes, Gregory Nicholl, Pip Ballantine and myself, Kat Richardson.) It also came out in the beginning of February and was largely lost in the shuffle.

If you are in a position to nominate one of these for a Nebula or other award–or if you just want a good read you missed in 2013, please consider these.

DONE! Yes, finally and barely on time. REVENANT first draft is done at 121,100 words. 7,549 of them today, including the Pro- and Epilogues. Killed people, saved people, left wreckage by the side of the road and I think it’s pretty good.

Just need to spell check and it’s off to Editor, Agent, and Betas.

Best of all: it’s done. For now.