Drum Roll Please

.... I'm done.... Fearless Fair Isle is in the bag. Or at least, it's in the First Stage Bag- there is much work left to do, some of it will be exhausting and all of it will have a deadline. But for now, the book is donedonedonedonedone!

And I am free! freefreefreefree. Which you might think would mean a lot of lazing around, with the Houseboy peeling grapes and suchlike. But amazingly enough, no, it's not going to be like that.

Well, I am going to do some lazing, and some reading, and some sewing, and some knitting for fun, and I really (really really) should do some cleaning. But what I'm also going to be doing is writing.

Yep- writing. People occasionally ask me when the next mystery is coming out, and I have a ready explanation that involves not having a publisher and being busy with knitting books. But the real reason that there have been no Tory Bauer mysteries for a decade is that I haven't had even the slightest urge to write fiction. In fact, I thought it was gone forever.

Imagine my surprise when a new set of characters walked into my brain and started talking a couple of months ago. I could not interrupt work on FFI for this new whim, because if there is one thing I've learned in writing 5 knitting books is that deadlines come a lot faster than you ever expect them to. In fact, the last two deadlines barely allowed for eating and sleeping, with no time whatsoever for side-ventures.

And if there is something else I've learned, it's self-discipline. When I wrote only fiction, I waited for *it* to be there, which meant that sometimes I would go weeks without writing a word, and then I'd crank out half a novel in 6 weeks. Down that road lies Crazytown. I didn't like living there, and I don't want to go back.

This time, I am going to write a little bit every day (or almost every day- I'm still me, there are no pods in the basement), and I will work whether I feel like it or not (and it is work, hard work- there may be some writers who get up in the morning, chomping at the bit to get to the typewriter, but I am not one of them), and maybe, just maybe, in this interim before anyone wants another knitting book (if indeed, anyone does), I will get this book written.

Oh yeah, it's a YA Fantasy, something that I hope Voracious Reader will enjoy.

In the meantime- I'm making progress on Un-Named Bird Sweater: