A month without writing.

I believe this is the longest stretch of not writing in the last two years. 

Next week, I'll be working the store for five days while Cameron goes off gallivanting.  Then I need to get my taxes ready, which is a once a year chore.  My brother Mike and his wife, Sherry are visiting on Saturday.  (Mike's 50 year Bend High School reunion!).

I've been chipping away at the scan of Star Axe.  Interesting to read it after all these years.  All I can see are the mistakes, but this is an existing book and I made the decision not to edit it further.  I can't resist breaking up a few of the longer paragraphs, but other than that and a few word changes and grammar changes here and there, I'm leaving it alone.  I have to save up to buy the rights to the original cover, and that of Snowcastles.  (I'm going to combine Snowcastles and Icetowers in one book.)

I'm not sure when The Dead Spend No Gold is going to be published.  Soon, I hope.  Usually, the physical version comes out a couple weeks after the ebook.  My publisher just posted a blog about how crushed he is under the workload, so...

I'm planning now to put Tuskers online as soon as I can.  Not even try to find a publisher.  I've got a cool cover ready and it is being edited, so when it comes back, there is nothing to stop me putting it up.  I'll be interested to see if a cool cover and an interesting idea are enough by themselves to sell the book.  (I suspect not...)

Got a call from someone yesterday who just wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed Led to the Slaughter.  It was someone who had read my three fantasy's and he told me how much I'd matured as a writer.  Very complimentary.  Getting this kind of response every few weeks or so is enough to keep me going.

I continue to sell Led to the Slaughter (and to a lessor extent, The Vampire Evolution Trilogy) in the two bookstores.  Much more successful at that than I ever dreamed.  Makes me wonder how much I could sell if I was at the store more often.  I'm having some new flyers printed up so I can hand them out to people who prefer to buy the ebook. 

Still making the effort, at least person to person, of promoting my books.

I'm going to keep up the full-scale effort through the publication of The Dead Spend No Gold, Tuskers I, II, and III.  Then for Faerylander, Wolflander, and Ghostlander.  Then for the third Virginia Reed book (subtitle, Ghosts of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine).

After that, I'm going to just produce the books myself and edit them myself and put them online one by one.  I'm pretty good at editing, and I'm more and more inclined to just want to get my books online without interference of any kind.

I suppose things could  change during the process of publishing the next 8 books.  That's a lot of books, and a lot could happen. 

But I will have given it a fair shot by then.

I love the writing, so I'm ready to continue whatever happens.