I got 200+ pages of line edits (on Duty, Ghost Squad #2) knocked off yesterday, which should make me feel good. However, the cordless electric mower I just bought is clearly defective, so that’s unhappy. The company (which shall remain nameless for the moment) now has one final chance to make it right. It would certainly help if they bothered to read my support request; I wish corporations would pay their support staff so said staff had time and bandwidth to do so. I hate having to insist.
It’s been an otherwise victorious day/week. I’m making good progress on the line edits–another day of pedal-to-the-metal work should see them done, though that will mean shifting the week’s subscription drop to Friday instead of today. That Damn Werelion Book is finally seeing preorder links propagate in both paperback (non-Amazon paperback here) and ebook, at long last. The roof is finished and seems like it’ll hold up, and a couple other house items are well on their way to being eventually fixed. And yet this whole business with the lawnmower irritates me almost past bearing.
Of course, there was Tuesday’s heartrending worry, which may have thrown the entire bloody week off. No details are necessary, suffice to say it ended well but the wear and tear on my nerves is still resonating. And it’s been 90F+ for a few days as well, which is never happy in this part of the country. We–and our infrastructure–aren’t built for this kind of bullshit. Sadly, it’s going to become more and more usual as climate change mounts.
Still, it’s cooling off at night, which is a boon. I have plenty of work to do and a shot at actually getting it all done, though Sons of Ymre 2 will be late–which I abhor, missing a deadline is one of my least favorite things. Better late than never, though, and the entire edifice of publishing is creaking badly under various stresses and strains so I’m not the only one behind. I keep telling myself that ongoing worldwide pandemic, still-ongoing creeping fascist coup, and a whole planet frying are quite reasonable reasons to be a little bit off-schedule, for godsake.
I’ve also decided on the next serial after Hell’s Acre is finished. Don’t get too excited, my beloveds–it will take almost a year, I think, since serials work chapter by chapter and there are a lot of them in an alt-historical Victorian-era tale that’s a mix of Assassin’s Creed, Da Vinci Code, and a few other things, including a Roman Empire that Christianity never made a dent in. But I think I can perhaps give you a tiny teaser, because I know a lot of fans will be super excited when the actual news drops. My newsletter subscribers already got this peek; now I’ll share it publicly.
I know it’s not much, but the cover is so beautiful I just can’t resist. Again, this will be the serial after the current one finishes, so 2023 is the earliest it’ll happen…but I’m already planning. The book is all but complete inside my head, I just need to decide whether I want a certain barbarian to get wounded badly enough for a potential plot tangle. (And, you know, write the damn thing.)
Hm. That’s all the news that’s fit to print, I suppose. Boxnoggin needs a long ramble this morning, and I could probably do with the same while the Great Outside is a livable temperature. I’m kind of excited about a few upcoming books–the damn werelions, of course, and next year’s The Dead God’s Heart duology, which I still don’t have preorder links for but hopefully soon, precious, soon.
The coffee is gone, there’s a cool breeze laden with birdsong through my window, and Boxnoggin is trotting down the hall to fetch me. I’d better get going.
See you around.