Due to a bug I picked up on Christmas Eve we didn’t make a holiday meal or go to my editor’s for Christmas dinner like we usually do. My sinuses are currently draining like you wouldn’t believe and I’m feeling moderately better so I think I’m going to cook up the turkey breast in an hour or so and make our festive meal (also I need leftover turkey so that I can make some more Holiday Leftovers Chelsea Buns for Ramón, who adores them. Gotta admit, I like them, too).

But today kicks off the post-Christmas period where I don’t have to worry about any more cleaning, decorating, or (once this evening is done) preparation of holiday feasts. Which means I can concentrate on what I want to do.

Yes, that means writing—I still need to get Shifter Woods: Claw finished and the Esposito County Shifters omnibus edition put together. But it also means tackling some long-neglected craft projects that have been languishing in my office closet for years, mainly quilts (at right are two baby quilts I made for a coworker back in 2005, which means that their recipients must be about 18 or so by now). As of an hour ago I finished a baby quilt for my new nephew R—said quilt is currently chugging through the washing machine to get rid of all the pencil marks. I have a twin-size quilt top done for my niece J and since I don’t have a longarm sewing machine I’ll have to hand quilt that one. There’s a wall hanging that has been pieced and now needs to be quilted, and I have another baby blanket in the closet that’s halfway quilted so I may throw that on the machine next.

For me, any sort of craft work is part of my writing process—when my hands are busy my mind gets to work on current writing projects and I work through plot issues, characterization, or even come up with totally new stories to keep myself entertained while I sew/crochet/knit/make jewelry/etc. I haven’t been able to quilt for a number of years now due to a project that was clogging up the pipeline. Now that it’s been finished and sent off to its owner it’s like a dam has broken and I have all this creative energy swirling around inside me, ready to be used.

Which is freaking awesome as you can guess. I fully plan on taking this energy back to the writing desk and hammering out the rest of the Paladins of Crystal and Olympic Cove series in 2023, and then getting to work on more Hidden Empire and Two Thrones novels. And with any luck I should finish some very pretty quilts, afghans, socks, and jewelry along the way.