Hot Blue Summer Sky

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Maybe it's the heat. Maybe I've got a case of the midsummer doldrums. All I want to do is lie down and have a good long nap. And by good long nap I mean I want to wake up no sooner that mid-October.

I've had it with summer. It's an inferno out there -- even the copperhead snakes are sticking to the shade and passing out cards that say CONSIDER YOURSELF BITTEN, THANKS instead of coiling up and striking, and I don't blame them one bit.

I believe Lou Ann agrees. We went for a walk earlier, and instead of running ahead and bouncing around and generally displaying boundless doggy exuberance, she headed right for the trail camera, waited quietly while I swapped data cards, and made a bee-line back to the house as soon as I locked the camera case shut. She's been in her chair, belly-up, under the study air conditioner ever since.

And still the sun blazes down. I can almost feel the heat of it, hear the merciless sizzle, just a couple of feet away on the other side of the study's A-frame roof. Part of me truly appreciates Lou Ann's sudden dedication to the air conditioner. I too want to curl up in a cool, dark place and hide from the sun's fiery glare.

I can't do that, of course, because there's too much work to be done. I'm down to the last five or ten pages of the new Mug and Meralda book, All the Turns of Light. That's the last place you want to stop when you're working on a book. There's a rhythm, a cadence, a delicate pace to be maintained near the end, and if I stop now, even for a day or two, I'll lose my sense of that pace. Getting it back would be difficult, if not impossible, so I'll let Lou Ann keep the chair and I'll sit here and tap away instead.

Turns of Light has taken nearly twice the time to complete than I estimated. But that's fine -- I'd rather blow my timeline and end up with a great book than stay on schedule and produce a mediocre one. If you're a fan of the first book (All the Paths of Shadow) I believe you'll love this one too.

Publishing News

My friend Maria Schneider, who is a talented author, animal lover, and licensed airship pilot, just released the sequel to Dragons of Wendal, which you should grab and read if you love fantasy and you haven't read it already. It's lots of fun, and it reminded me of the classic fantasy I grew up on. 

The new book is entitled Dragon Kin and you can get it from the Kobo bookstore or from Amazon by using the links below:

Click for Dragon Kin at the Kobo Store 

Click for Dragon Kin at Amazon

I loved the first book, The Dragons of Wendal, so I'm excited to snatch up the sequel!

Here's the sample blurb from Kobo, to give you an idea of what the book is about:

Drissa needs a place to hide, and she needed it yesterday. Wendal, with its rumors of inhospitable shifters, unknown terrain and wild magic, is not a territory many want to explore, making it the perfect place to disappear. Now, the last thing Drissa needs is to adopt more trouble, but what can she do when it hatches at her feet and then insists she drag it and a half-dead stranger to safety? But she’ll do whatever is necessary to survive, because her younger sister can’t wait forever to be rescued. Of course, Wendal and its inhabitants aren’t necessarily interested in her long-term plans or her survival.

Dragons of Wendal is book one in the series.

Okay, it's back to work for me. Take care, folks, and be wary of the heat!