Blog Post No. 484
The end is near for the fifth and final novella, Snow from a Distant Sky. As I mentioned last week, I’m waiting on a few edits to come in before getting started on the layout. The cover is currently being designed and drawn by the great Glen Hawkes, too. (I can’t wait to share it). As soon as I get those edits in, I have to go over them, do a final once over for myself, then the out-loud read before putting it all together and sending it off to the printers. The book may come out in the first or second week of April, depending on how the sample copies turn out. Continue reading “Revenge of the Day Job”
The 
Back when I was in high school, I got into the habit of spending hot summer days in the basement sitting on an old couch and watching movies on my parent’s first VCR. It was a huge grey beast that cost them something like a thousand dollars when they bought it. Years later it was relegated to the basement with the same old TV from the 
Here we are again, dear reader. It’s a new week and if I’ve been able to continue as well as I started, I’ll be feeling good about my progress (remember I write these on Tuesday even now that I’m at home and really I have all the time in the world to write posts on Thursday or even Wednesday night, but I don’t want to break my habit). Not just with the writing, either. After a less than productive weekend, I had a bit of a reset. It happens from time to time. I’ll do well, keeping on top of things, then I’ll hit a wall or get worn out and then things fall apart for a few days. Then I pick myself back up and try again. Sometimes it’s a matter of days and weeks, sometimes months. It’s the same kind of thing I’ve been struggling with over the years with the summer slump. 
I’ve been working on a second draft of 
The 
I’ve already had a 
The last ChiSeries Windsor of the year took place last night. I’d like to say it was a smashing success, but (as I’ve said before) I write these blog posts early, for a number of reasons, and I don’t know how it went yet. I’m pretty nervous. Christian and I put a lot into this one (both time and some money) so I hope that the low numbers on the event page and the severe lack of people signed up to read were inaccurate indicators of what to expect. I hope we filled Phog to the brim and had so many people to read that we had to cut it short. I hope that all the extra effort, the time volunteered by the people we roped in to be judges, and the bumping of a regular Wednesday night musicians was worth it and we had the best ChiSeries Windsor yet! As I write this, I do not think that will be the case. 
I’ve been doing this blog for a number of years now, and I’ve never been part of a blog tour (or blog share, or whatever). I did have a guest post at one time, but it wasn’t what I had in mind, and the particular person doesn’t do much posting anymore. Given the number of authors I know who do have active blogs, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to try again. I suppose part of it has to do with my obsessive need to not play well with others, but I genuinely like these folks and while they may not all write the kind of stuff I fancy, they are very good at what they do. (Just because a book isn’t your type of genre, doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate how well written it is). For the next four weeks (starting next week) I’m going to be featuring one of these authors and one of their works. The group came up with some formats for the posts, but I like to be difficult, so I’m doing kind of whatever comes to me in the moment. I hope they like it (and you, obviously). 
Over the last few years (I just realized about seven) Christian and I have formed a pretty good partnership. So much so that folks who don’t know he is married with kids often think we are a couple. We’ve learned to just go with it, but that’s not what this is about. While we plan, host, and attend a lot of events together, we sometimes do things that the other person can’t (or doesn’t want to on the rare occasion). It’s unbelievable, I know, but it happens. One of those things is the 
Ben Van Dongen 