So close and yet so far...

I'm 13 out of 19 chapters in with my most recent (and hopefully last) "once-over" of my first novel, This Mortal Coil. So allow me to express my frustration with the headache I woke up with today. Today, the day before we celebrate our Thanksgiving with all the absent family members and I'm on forced hiatus (at least from my computer) while my boyfriend's cousin takes over my workspace so they may game epically side-by-side. Not that I'm sorry to have an excuse to play that much more Fallout, but I've been on kind of a roll lately.

At any rate, the "abridged" version of the book should be available soon and in print. I'll start promoting again once it is.

And as I've been delegated to entertain children via Xbox games, it looks like that little two day hiatus has started a day early. Oh well...the gamer in me really can't complain. Can I?

Soapboxes and Submissions

I feel like I've spent an inordinate amount of time up on my soapbox lately. Mostly this has been due to social and mainstream media being a split between support for France, Lebanon and the Syrian refugees and the frothing-at-the-mouth sectarian bigotry being spouted by the likes of Donald "I Get Closer to Hitler Every Day" Trump. I hate to cite that comparison, but there's a growing reason we're seeing it everywhere. No-one took Hitler all that seriously at first either. I'm just hoping all this pre-genocide type talk thrusts him even further down in the polls as opposed to lifting him up. You know, the way rounding all the illegal Mexicans up and tossing them unceremoniously over his wall at the border seemed to do.

But, occasionally, I have taken the time to step down off of it and away from social media and the TV. Well, actually, my only real contact with the TV is when I pass it on my way to the bathroom or the kitchen. I rarely watch TV on my own (Netflix and YouTube are where I get the bulk of my "Television" and I only call it that because that is the name of the device through which it is being projected at me), and even then it's usually something like HGTV and not anything to do with current events. Sometimes I even get some writing done...you know, when I'm not glued so tightly to Fallout 4 that I spend three straight nights dreaming I'm in dark, dirty rooms and broken buildings trying to determine the best means to slow time or target better and maybe score a headshot (or a sweet grenade hit, as seen in that video).

I have actually made a great deal of progress in a short period of time. Not to say I didn't drag my feet (or ass, or however my reluctance is best described) getting there. When asked what my first novel was about the other day, I only just then figured out how to best describe it in a succinct and direct manner without being too esoteric or going uh and errm a lot. Only just then.

I completed this novel in a period of seven months, spending another year or so editing it. I am currently going over it again just to be sure it is really ready this time to be submitted to agents. Using the query letter I only just wrote this week. This week, during which I've also been working on the sequel that I started right after I finished the first one...two years ago.

So...yeah. I am as legendarily slow a writer as I am a reader. And I don't even have a day job to blame this time. But I'm getting my mojo back...I think. At least, it's beginning to feel much more like when I first embarked on this quest to become an author. Now there's a game I'd very much like to get an achievement in. Hang with me and I might just give the notification when it's popped.

Long time, no...well, anything

Hello, hello, hello again from the brink of oblivion. I don't want anyone to think, due to the veritable shutdown of this blog and the corresponding Twitter, that I haven't been working with our Fair Weather Friends because I have, albeit in tiny pieces. Truth is, between some employment changes and the decision to try my hand at pumping out erotica (pun may or may not be intended, I haven't exactly decided), I just haven't been able to invest as much writing time in my favorite fantasy gang.

But they're coming back. Not just because I borrowed a few for said 18+ works, but in the actual medium where they belong. I imagine Reinbert is getting rather frustrated with me regardless, though his Facebook has been rather quiet. It's got to be hard to get those updates across from Oru when his main line has been all but broken. Also kind of hard to move around when you're consistently left in a sort of stasis by your creator.

At any rate, new novel is happening among the smut. And smut is happening, too, a handful of recognizable characters from the series appearing in a couple erotic shorts. The one in progress at the time of this entry I can only recommend reading if you're not bothered by spoilers. As much as this is not exactly the place to peddle this stuff, its predecessor can be found here, as well as a rather shocking appearance by Reinbert's main squeeze in this one. Just a reminder it is 18+ (or whatever the age of majority is in your country) and not for the faint of heart!