I was on a trip to Ft. Myers, Florida, when I saw the post for June 30 go up on my blog. I realized in that moment that I had fallen way, way behind on my holiday stories. Oh, I hadn’t run out of pre-written days — I’d written up through July 20 — but things were getting a little out of hand in terms of my backlog. My original goal with the holiday stories was to stay two months ahead, but it’s been a lot harder to write, especially now that I’m back in the office three days a week. In fact, I hadn’t written almost anything on the holiday stories in weeks — although I did write the first part of the McKenna story, and I did work on my non-kink choose-your-own-adventure book, adding almost 5000 words to it.

Well, that night, June 30, I wrote a 2100-word holiday story that was basically a retelling of a night I had with Partner 1, where I gave her a cold caning. Then, the next morning, I wrote two more stories, bringing me up through July 23.

Great. I managed to write while on vacation. That almost never happens.

Of course, I still had seven days to go, and I was feeling like I was drowning.

Not only was I behind on my holiday stories, but I was also running out of queued blog posts — I had the week of July 3 done, but that was about it. I didn’t even have a recap post for July started because I hadn’t finished July.

Writing is hard. Anyone who says it’s just sitting in front of a computer typing doesn’t understand the amount of energy that goes into the creative process. Thinking about writing is as much work as writing itself, and when you’re writing kink, there’s the added bonus of trying not to repeat yourself too many times. I mean, in real life you could have a partner, and every Friday night you spank her and fuck her. Maybe the spanking changes a little bit — different implements, different intensities — and maybe the fucking changes too — the amount and order of foreplay, the positions, et cetera — but it’s not repetitive or boring. Trust me, I know.

Writing the same spankings and sex, though… that can get boring. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of creativity, to write 365 individual stories. So far I’ve written 204, which means I have 161 to go. When I first started this project, I didn’t think it would be this easy, but I also didn’t think it would be this daunting — and I never expected to lose three days a week of writing time to commuting. Oh, I have great plans — come home from work, change, exercise, do my daily administrative tasks, write, eat dinner, watch TV — but they never seem to pan out. I never exercise, for one thing, and for another I have a social life. I see Partner 1 and Partner 2 an average of three times a week, and I go to four or five munches a month. Plus I have other friends I hang out with, and new episodes of Strange New Worlds and Masterchef to watch, and dishes to do, and parenting to take care of, and I need to relax and sleep, and I usually wake up before the alarm and get grumpy at myself…

It’s a lot.

But I’m not giving up. These holiday stories are going to be written. I might not finish them all in 2023, but I will finish them all.

Count on it.