Deadline a-Comin' (Ruh Roh)

Whew! The past month just dissolved into nothingness...where does the time go??

I'm a few weeks away from my self-imposed first draft deadline for my novel and, well, I'm confessing right here and now that there's no way I'll be making that deadline unless I simply type "The End" on the last page of my current draft and call it finished. I'm still in the middle. Stuck in the middle. Wading through the middle. This draft is quicksand, really, sucking me in and down. Each chapter I write multiplies like a Gremlin - ten more chapters that I didn't anticipate bubble off of the one I just wrote. But I love the writing process, tedious as it may be at times. Novel writing is a marathon, not a sprint. The finish line appears to be somewhere in March or April.

I WILL finish.

I can't pinpoint one single thing that caused me to miss my deadline. There's a lot going on with me. In the hours not spent on my writing, so much is happening that requires not only my physical, but also my mental and emotional energy. Everything from sweet baby ten-month-old Taylor becoming increasingly interactive to new clients calling to a sick doggie to the agony of waiting to find out if my dad will be placed on the liver transplant list at Duke.

The year 2008 has shaped up to be a pivotal year for me in all facets of my life. To sum it up with a single "B" (see my earlier posts if I just lost you...), I'm calling the year 2008 "Busy"!

What word best describes your 2008?