This whole return-to-office thing has put a huge crimp in my plans to finish the holiday stories by the end of this year. Being in the office three days a week means I lose a lot of writing time by having to commute, and then, when I get home, decompress.

But at least I’ve been writing something. While I’m at work, during my breaks, I’ve been working on a science fiction choose-your-own-adventure novel about a guy on the run from the space mob. At the time I’m posting this, I’ve written 69 (nice) out of a total 158 “pages” — for reference, Switching Plans has 400+ “pages”, and if I printed it out at 12-point text it would be over 1200 actual printed pages. Word count is close to 60,000 out of a projected 200,000. I’m having a lot of fun writing the story — there may not be as many paths to choose, but there are still enough for readers to enjoy themselves and read the book multiple times. Of course, the main character dies at the end of a lot of the paths, but hey, space is dangerous.

I knock out between 5000 and 10,000 words every three days of in-office time. That’s not too bad, right?

Unfortunately, when I publish this novel, you may never know about it, because I’m not publishing it as JJ Rose. A lot of readers don’t want to cross-pollinate their erotica with their sci-fi — Chuck Tingle being the notable exception that comes to mind. And if I ever want to get an agent for my sci-fi work, it’ll probably be better if, when they google my name, they don’t find a bunch of spanking fiction (even if they’re into spanking, which I’m willing to bet some of them are).

I have also written a couple of holiday stories this month, but I’m still woefully behind — it’s coming up on the end of September and I haven’t even finished August. But at least I’ve written something.