Heavy Work, No Rain

There is a lens of cloud from horizon to horizon, I have that Sting song in my head, and it hasn’t cooled off overnight. It’s sticky, and clingy, and though I’m pretty happy the giant nuclear eye in the sky is covered, my lungs would like a word with atmospheric conditions. Ah well.

Today is Thursday, which means a subscription drop. Also, I have Big Dreams of reading the second half of Eye of Argon to you all this afternoon. So my schedule is jam-packed, and I ought to get Boxnoggin walked before it gets even more stifling. I long for a storm, some rain, thunder, anything to break the tension. Of course, poor Box wouldn’t like loud skybooms at all, so it’s probably best there are none in the forecast.

Yesterday was productive…sort of. It was a day of several catch-up tasks taking bites of time, so by the end everything was neatly arranged but I felt no real progress had been made. It didn’t help that I had to rip out and remodel the last 5k written in Sons of Ymre 2, since the story calmly let me know–at 3am, in fact, while I was busy trying to sleep–that it wanted to go in a completely different direction and I’d best catch up if I had any intention of finishing the damn thing.

I wasn’t mad. Well, not very mad. Okay, I was irritated beyond belief, but the feeling is great fuel and wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. So that’s done, and the last quarter of the manuscript is all set up for breathless action and maybe a cameo by the couple from the previous book. It will be hell to revise from zero to first draft, but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles. And I also need to block out the next assassination attempt in Hell’s Acre. I need a few more scenes of the serial done and dusted before I shift to revising the Tolkien Viking Werewolves.

At least with the house closed up tight against the heat Boxnoggin isn’t alerting to the roofing happening down the street. Ours is done–thank every god that ever was or will be–but one of the neighbors is getting a new topper for their own domicile, and the hammering, not to mention the ripping and nail guns, sends Lord van der Sploot into a positive cascade of “OMG MUM DID YOU HEAR THAT, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD, ALERT, ALERT, FIRE, FLOOD, SMOOOOOOOG!”

Poor fellow. He means well.

I’m trying not to look at the news cycle, with varying degrees of success on an hourly basis. The best vengeance is continuing my work, and all that. It might clear up in a bit, so I’d best get moving. The last thing I need is heatstroke added to everything else. I’m really looking forward to reading to you all today; Eustace has been positively beside himself wondering what happens to Gringr the Ginger Barbarian. I would’ve thought he’d be more interested in the Girl with the Golden Brassiere, but there’s no accounting for taste.

Onward, upward, excelsior, into the breach and all that. May we all survive Thursday intact, my beloveds.

Let’s get started.

ETA: The Demon’s Librarian sale will go on next month; there were some Technical Difficulties. My apologies, my friends.