Hope you still have a good christmas. Fortunately, I'm still playing catch-up with your older work, but I can see a time where I'll be chomping at the bit to get new material too!
Which leads me to question time again
Who dictates your deadlines? Surely something like drafting and re-drafting is impossible to predict a schedule for. Or do your publishers simply take an educated guess at how long they think it'll take, and then shorten it by a couple of months? Do you ever see yourself in a position where you can turn around to your publishers and say, "it'll be done when it's done?"