Of Bacon Bombs and Bribery

This morning went something like this:

Me: We should get a Pig Bomb.

Arizona (glances at the Cabela's hunting catalog in my hand--you know, the one they sent us because, having ordered some fishing lures from them, we are clearly strong candidates for stalking half-ton boars with arrows): You know that's pee smell from a sow in heat, right? And the bomb is designed to disperse it like an eighth of a mile?

Me: Yep.

Arizona: And we don't hunt boar. Don't even have them in the area, as far as I know.

Me: Well, there's the Bear Bomb, too. It's bacon flavored. I'm thinking one of them--hey, maybe both!--would make an awesome prank. You know, open the door and POOF! Bacon-scented pig pee!

Arizona (walks away, shaking head): You scare me.

***

So I finished a book this weekend!! Yep, the fifth Mustang Ridge book is in the can and winging its electronic way to New York. Woot! My upcoming release schedule looks like this:

Aug 3 (coming up soon, yay!): HARVEST AT MUSTANG RIDGE (Krista's book, pimping to begin this week!)

Feb '15 FIRELIGHT AT MUSTANG RIDGE (I've got the cover ... maybe a sneak peek soon?)

Spring '15 ANOTHER FYNE THING (A Mustang Ridge uber-novella, or short book or something. Have to see whether it gets bigger or smaller in revisions!)

Aug '15 The one I just turned in. Can I confess something? I know my editor and I settled on a title for this one, and I love it ... but darned if I can remember what it is. And, yanno, I'm just feeling too lazy to go back and look up the email.

And then ... ROMANTIC SUSPENSE! Yep, I'm revving the Jessica Andersen name back up and writing a RS trilogy for release in 2015, starting today. Think Longmire meets Criminal Minds. CSI cowboys. Woo! (I've also got a paranormal bubbling in my brain, but the suspense is demanding my attention first.) Lots to do, lots to do!

But ... 

Do you ever find yourself working on a big, endless-feeling project--for work or the house or a craft--and when you're getting toward the end and jonesing to be finished, you start looking forward to all the stuff you can do when you're done? Ooh, I'd way rather be out in the garden. And I need to shop for new shorts. I could totally be making brownies right now! (Granted, there comes a point in certain projects when cleaning the litter box or taking out the trash sounds Very Appealing.) I do this All. The. Time. Problem is that when I finish the book, POOF (kinda like the bacon-flavored Pig Bomb), all those "Ooh, I gotta"s fly out of my head, which goes disturbingly empty.

I don't have a clue what carrots I used to lure myself to The End this time, what bribes I promised myself when I turned in the manuscript. Sometimes I remember to make a list. This time, nope. 

So I had a couple of cookies and slept most of yesterday (literally, I think I was awake about six hours) ... and today I'm going to Start A New Book. 'Cause I'm a geek like that, and in a way, it's its own reward :)