I opted out of NaNoWriMo this year so I could focus on my 2006 NaNo project, Neutral Zone, along with a short story that’s due this week.

The short story is for Nerdvana, an anthology that hits stores in Fall 2009. The collection focuses on nerds and geeks. To quote part of the call for submissions: “I want to hear about the social misfits, brainiacs, and comic book/superhero obsessed geeks… I want fiction that shows brains can be sexy.” I came up with a couple ideas pretty quickly and settled on one to flesh out. I wrote it last week and worked on polishing it this week. Tomorrow it’s off to the editor. Hopefully it will be a success.

Meanwhile, I’ve been back on Neutral Zone the past week or so. Work on it came to a grinding halt for nearly two months as the day job took center stage to get the Monopoly game ready. I’ve enjoyed getting back to the editing/polishing and working with the characters again. My goal is to spend at least an hour a day (and more if possible) on the edit work until I’m sure the novel is as good as I can make it.