Edits are progressing very well on Book 20, almost too well. I'll need another round after I finish this current round.
I really like the story of Zaer and Shen and some brief glimpses of their adventures together, but I still had some rewriting that leaves me thinking I need one more editing round before it's ready.
Very soon, though! After this, it'll be back to writing... starting Book 23. I'm getting close to the end.
Thanks for reading!
I think it's time.
Time to announce the BIG project that's been in the works that I couldn't reveal. I was (metaphorically) biting my tongue hard.
I started a new company. This company now has a fully functional website that had a few bugs shaken out in a slow rollout. Prior experience has taught me that websites always need a slow rollout for this reason. And we found some. My website developer for this project has fixed the few issues uncovered and added a spiffy feature I hadn't even considered. I've had some practice with the admin side of things and am getting the hang of managing this.
Readers here shouldn't be surprised to see the St. Benedict medal cross on the bottom of the new site. And if you're not a regular reader, you probably wouldn't even realize what it is or care.
It is finally ready for a full reveal, a passion project that has been waiting years to happen. Now, it's real...
Go to spotlightonindiesff.com to see the finished site with the first books already listed.
I'll be adding books myself of works that I want to promote, but authors can submit their own SFF books to be featured on the site.
ps--I wanted to keep this completely separate from my author site, so I am using a different website developer. We have so much talent in this town! Both of them are great!
The editing on Book 20 slowed a bit with an unexpected early finishing of the big project.
I still can't say what that other special big project is. It's gone into the beta testing and tweaking stage. I've selected a few trusted individuals to provide their feedback.
But now that it's to this point, I can switch gears to focusing on editing again. I have a week and a half to make my goal. I'll be digging in to finish that and get Book 20 published.
It'll be a while yet before the big project is ready for a public announcement, but it's going to be great.
Stay tuned!
I am close to getting sick of fresh garden peas. Yes, even for those of us who love fresh peas, we can reach our saturation point.
Around a year ago, I had a lot of peas put away in our freezer, along with some other frozen foods from our garden... until the door of the upright freezer wasn't shut properly and stayed open overnight. Everything thawed. I discovered that mess the next morning when going into the garage to head to work. We lost a LOT of work and food last year, including all the peas I had picked and shelled and measured and bagged.
I've been waiting to restock that. This year, I planted different peas, but they're good and they are indeed mildew resistant. I had always been losing my 5-6 ft. peas (we give them fences to climb) by this time. I was low on those, so this year, I ordered new peas from Gurney's, and they were sold as mildew-resistant. They are. They're short, however, only 24-30" tall. But, boy, do they produce! Not as much as the other plants, but they haven't stopped, so I've been able to refill what was lost.
We also learned from that loss two things: 1) Don't put the kids' preferred foods in the upright freezer, and 2) put a lock/latch on the door to make sure it can't open. Hubby put a child safety lock on the upright, so it's not a locking lock but a safety lock to keep little kids out of a fridge. When we secure it each time we close the door, we can be sure that door will stay shut.
And, we learned that putting the bagged frozen garden produce into large, stackable Rubbermaid containers help us make a lot better use of the space in the upright freezer. The upright is great for being able to see everything and not have to dig around, but it does have that door-closing issue. Putting bags into bins really helps to keep it organized. AND, if it ever does have a great meltdown again, that will reduce the mess!
When a Starfire shard calls out to Nya in desperation, she immediately transports the Iludrin to a world where they discover game hunters.Afraid that the hunters are there for the Keepers, Nya and L'Ni, with an escort of Altorin, are taken to the surface by Zaer and Shen on the Cartegos. There, they find one of the small hunter vessels, but no one is present. While the hunters are away, Shen has an idea to disable it. However, when one of the local creatures attacks, the ship, with Shen on it, crashes over a cliff into the sea and sinks beneath the surface.The hunters aren't alone, however. Zaer and the others are forced to escape the world with the shard, but what arrives reveals that the creatures of that world were not the only ones being hunted.
Since I haven't done so in a while and was cleaning out pictures, I thought it might be fun to share some of the most recent pics of the cats. I'm also taking a break from editing Book 20 of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds. The first round of edits is halfway done and different than most first rounds of edits--I'm hitting the ground running as if already in my usual second round of edits.
Anway, here's a series of cat pics for the animal lovers:
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| The old boy has become pretty tolerant of Bilbo. |
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| a rare moment of our torbie tolerating being close to one of the boys (torties/torbies are always girls) |
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| Bilbo content in daddy's arms |
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| The two tuxedos (blue and brown) bird watching |
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| They love their catio, which has an opening so they can freely move in and out between the house and the catio. Only the two big boys--the old Siamese and Bilbo--lay in the hammocks. |
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| The trio of oldsters. They love the cat cabinet (which was designed for litter boxes but which became their toy box and also their window ledge, with a pet pad added for comfort). |
Bilbo has fully settled in. He's been with us for over eight months and it's like he's always been here. Ironically, the one cat that liked him least--the oldest, our Siamese--is the one usually snuggling next to him, albeit reluctantly. Nevertheless, the Siamese is the most likely to allow Bilbo to lay next to him.
And Bilbo is a daddy's boy (the person holding him in the one pic).