Today, October 31, was my original self-imposed deadline for the holiday stories. Unfortunately, what with having to go back to the office, my writing (and exercising) time has now become commuting time, and I cram everything I used to do in those two hours per day every weekday into two days a week.

As of the writing of this post, I’ve completed up through August 21. I still have more than 120 stories to write before I finish the project. The odds of getting it done this year are slim. Doable, but slim. I can usually only crank out two or three of these per day before I get tired of writing smut, and I only have two weekdays per week to write. Yes, I could write on weekends, but my weekends are pretty busy these days. Plus, I’m right in the middle of a two-week period where I have to be in the office every day for a big product launch, eating up even more writing time.

I do plan to finish the holiday stories — I’ve come too far not to — and I’ve already started editing the first collection, which should be out January 15 if all goes well. But as for getting them all done this year? Doubtful.

I hate missing deadlines. It makes me feel like a failure, even though I know I’ve already written more than 225 stories and hundreds of thousands of words, and created all sorts of cool new characters and scenarios for you to read about. I’m not a failure, but I feel like I blew it.

A little positive reinforcement in the form of book reviews would probably help, though. Just saying.