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I finally finished the Malifaux crew I started painting back in April:

So much for monthly goals. 🙂 Drew and I played our first game last weekend, and it is awesome. His army looks better than mine, though. It’s an occupational hazard.

Now I’m working on my very favorite mini ever, which scares me to death. I’m going very, very slowly, so as to give it a paint job that might approach being worthy of the sculpt.

Today, I began work on this again.

This is what feels like revision #984982 of a book that has given me fits for years.  I did a big revision on it last spring/fall, and then got more feedback on it from writing groups/very smart professionals.  And then I started trying to work on it again several months ago.

Trying to fix the thing was like torture.  It made me hate writing.

So I prioritized in front of it every possible project that I had to revise.  Anything to keep from having to touch the thing again.  But it just sat there on my desk.  Looming.

And then.  Last week.  I was in the best place in the world for thinking about things, but not the place that I expect to think about a manuscript that is filled with violence and sex and horror and abuse.

But then I knew.  Not how to fix it–something else, which turned out to be more important.

I knew that I could do it.  I could fix this book.  I could make it be what I wanted it to be.  Not next year when I’m a better writer.  Not in six months when I’ve gotten some distance.  Now.  I could do it now.

I went home, and started talking about it with my favorite sounding board.  (I don’t talk about my books, except with Drew.  Everyone else gets the pitch only.  Drew gets to listen to the hours and hours of “what if I did this?”  He’s the most helpful ever.)

And then I figured out what was wrong with the book.  I figured out why writing it felt like torture.  I figured out what it needed.

I started on it again today, and the work doesn’t feel like torture.  This draft isn’t going to be perfect.  There will be more revisions, I’m sure.  There always are.

But I know I can fix it.

And that makes all the difference.

I just finished another round of revisions on one of the many projects I’m juggling right now.  And I have to say, the thing I am very most looking forward to about having SKIPPED in print is that once it is, I can never touch that book again. Until a book is in print, there is always the possibility that I’ll rewrite it.  That I’ll come up with the perfect revision and dig into it again.  And I do, regularly.

But once the book is published, it is done. For the first time in my life, I will have really, truly finished a book.  And, for better or for worse, I’ll never have to rework it.

I am so looking forward to that.

Drew and I went up to Red Butte Gardens on Saturday to take pictures, and we ran into this buddy.

I’d never seen one before that wasn’t in a zoo.  I wish I’d gotten a picture of the rattle, but I wasn’t going to get any closer to provoke the shot.  (This was taken with my awesome zoom.  We were probably ten feet away.)

I guess those Watch for Rattlesnake signs aren’t just to scare the tourists.

I am ready for it not to be so hot outside anymore.  On the other hand, our swamp cooler is super-powered, and keeps us cool.  As long as I don’t want to leave my house, it’s pleasant.

I’m also ready for there to be fewer wasps.  Doesn’t matter how many we kill, they insist on nesting all over the house.  Another round of mass waspy murder coming on tonight.

I have 19 pages left over from last week’s revision.  Then the new draft of this book is done.  It’s the hardest 19 pages in the book, though.   I’m determined to finish it today.   Then, on to the next draft of the next book.  I had some breakthroughs on that one last week, so I think I’m finally ready to get it right.

Meet Stabby MacBeak, fearless defender of sugary nectar goodness:

It’s a hard job, what with the constant invasions from the Caped Yellow Avenger:

But someone has to do it.