The Gossip Queens AND Holiday Wishes

It feels kind of weird but good to have two books out back to back. I'm pretty sure I didn't realize this would happen when I got the dates for The Gossip Queens and Holiday Wishes way back when.

The trouble is that when you're working on more than one book at a time - writing, revising, promoting - you kind of lose track of when things are going to happen. Or at least I do. I think it's because of the way my mind works.

I tend to concentrate on the task at hand - right now I'm finishing up Seeing Death and that's my task for the next few days. Then I'll send it off to my agent and I'll forget about it. After that, I have to do the revisions for Last Night at the Halfmoon. That's my task for the few days after Seeing Death is finished. Once both those things are done, I'm going to spend some time doing promotion, sending out books, doing mailings, writing some promotional material - that's another short term task.

I do have a vague idea of what I'm going to do after those things are completed - I'm going to work on The Twisted Sisters - but that's far enough in the future that it really is kind of hazy and distant. And after that? Please. I have absolutely no idea. I suspect, though, that my agent does.

My focus tends to be very intense and probably a little too short term - this week, maybe a part of the next; this task, maybe the one following. I do look at my calendar to see what's coming up, but I'm not a person who has a list of what I have to do for the week. And I certainly don't have a list of the things I need to do for the year. And I probably should.

But what this means is that occasionally - like this month - I get a surprise. And what a lovely surprise - two books on the shelves at once. Maybe having the short term, intense focus is a good thing - at least this time.

Kate