Dragging, Pulling

This morning I got the Prince off to school, absorbed coffee, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, and took Miss B and Odd Trundles for a morning walk. Trundles, despite dancing around my office groaning with the urge to Do Something, did not like that the Something required Effort. Maybe he had a game of tug in mind, but if he was going to grumble at me, a walk it was to be. He dragged the entire way, while B pulled, half a block down the hill and half a block back.

It was a looooooong half-hour, let me tell you.

Also half-pulling, half-dragging is the book. I’ve now gone too deeply into Harmony to come out now. I should be working on Afterwar, but until I know that series has a home, I can’t afford the time spent on it. Besides, Harmony is…not easier, but more assured. Less of a tightrope act and more of an unfolding.

Preparations for The Marked are on schedule, still. The copyedits have gone back to the editor, and I should have some draft covers for my perusal later this week. We’re on track for an October release, which means, of course, that Indiegogo backers will get it mid-September, at least a week (if not more) before it’s released to the world.

There’s a collaborative project on the horizon, and some decisions I need to make. But for right now, I’m happily working away on a book that’s purely a gift for someone I care about, and that’s a good feeling. I needed it, especially after the craze of revisions on Cormorant Run. Which has been orphaned, so it’s still up in the air. That sucks, because I think it’s some of my best work to date, and there’s a very real chance it won’t be published for a long, long while. *sigh* Publishing: dragging and pulling just like everything else. I should be irritated, but instead, I just keep telling myself “what do you expect, you’re a Gemini, everything is opposites.”

Not for the faint of heart, this career. With the rains returning and plenty of hot tea, though, I go soldiering on.