Deadlines, Deadlines... and did I mention deadlines?

That's what I'm in the thick of right now. I made a commitment to myself at the beginning of 2012 to slow down with my writing. In 2011 I burned out a little bit trying to get too much done too quickly, and it did nothing except give me a bunch of books that I didn't have time to promote because I was too busy trying to get the next book done.

So far in 2012, I had been doing a pretty good job taking it slow and easy, but the past couple weeks I've buried myself under a few deadlines. I'm being smarter about it in the past; I'm checking all the possible factors that could keep me from meeting the deadlines, negotiating to extend things a little if the deadline was set by someone else, and balancing the writing with other things that I enjoy so I can keep enjoying writing as well.

But I'm still in the thick of deadlines. So this is going to be a short post, because I'm writing it on a break in working on other things. I have two projects that have to be finished within the next week or so, two others that people are waiting for, and a couple that are looming but not immediate.

I'm making sure to have fun, because if I let myself obsess too much about the deadlines I lose the love of writing. And I write primarily for the love of the stories.

Hope all of you are enjoying whatever you're doing, and I'll see you again on the 17th, hopefully with the news that I'm out from under my pile--at least temporarily.