Sometimes in the life of a freelance writer, all of one’s projects seem remote and abstract. Even if you are focused on the one you are currently drafting, you are half aware of the others lingering in various stages of completion.

At other times, everything collides.

For me, today is an example of the latter. Though I am in a mad scramble to finish my ms. for Star Trek Vanguard: Precipice by April 15 (having negotiated a deadline extension today with Madam Editor), I now must also review and return the copy edited ms. of The 4400: Promises Broken and the first-pass pages of my first original novel, The Calling, by March 25.

Write one novel while editing two others: this is the nature of the job. Oh, well — I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Back to work now. If I don’t return phone calls or e-mails in a timely fashion this month, now you know why….