July started so well but summer beat me down.

Status

The Wizards Cat
It’s still open on my desktop. I look at it but I’ve not managed to move the needle much. I blame the summer doldrums. It’s as good an excuse as any.

Everything Else
No change. I’ll eventually get back to SF. Someday we’ll get the Tanyth audiobooks squared away. I have zero idea when

What Am I Reading?

I’m still ruminating on the Looman’s book. There are seven lessons and I’ve yet to manage all seven. In spite of that I’ve been reading up a storm, mostly grinding through fantasy and litRPG series.

My recommendation for the month is BR Kingsolver’s Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar series. I’m kind of a sucker for underdog-makes-good stories and Kingsolver’s Erin McLane filled the bill for me. Great, very flawed main character trying to make up for the damage she’s done while healing from the damage done to her. Terrific supporting cast including the bar owner, Sam O’Grady, and a host of others. I even liked the vampires a little.

Quite violent. Lots of fights and people getting swords stuck in them various ways. Most of them deserved it. I still enjoyed it.

But, as always, don’t take my word for it. Maybe grab a sample of book 1, Shadow Hunter, and see what you think.

About the Newsletter
I publish a newsletter every month on the 15th. You don’t need to subscribe to get the mid-month update. You can find them archived on my newsletter’s public page at Kit.

Looking Forward

The household got turned upside-down mid-month when one of the kids got an apartment and moved out. It’s a great place. Perfect starter in a nice neighborhood. Small and a “walk-down” but in this climate, that means buffered from the heat of summer and the cold of winter. It left a hole in our well-ordered household and we’re all catching up from the change.

I expect the hot weather will continue putting a damper on my morning walk, which makes my mental health – not to mention my physical health – suffer. I’ll get it back together. Eventually.

I’m still planning on finishing this book. Eventually. Certainly before I try to write anything else.

For what it’s worth, I feel like I’m in a better place now. I just need that place to include a recalcitrant cat.

Until next month, safe voyage.

-N

I’m getting the mojo back. It’s a slow process but it is a process and it’s working.

Status

The Wizards Cat
The story grows a little bit almost every day. I’m still looking for the spark that turns my little candle into a bonfire but the fact that I’ve kept it growing most of the month keeps me coming back to it.

Everything Else
All the long form fiction stuff – more science fiction, more fantasy, different formats (notably the audiobooks for Tanyth), are all on hiatus. Virtually frozen in storage against the time when I can think about them again. Not my wish, but a simple recognition that I’ve gotten very limited in my ability to process multiple projects with any kind of reliability.

What Am I Reading?

I ripped through Eric Ugland’s “The Good Guys” series. Fifteen volumes in a couple of weeks. LitRPG and highly recommended but that niche is an acquired taste that many of you don’t share.

More pertinent, I also read the first three volumes of J J Green’s Space Colony One series. I picked them up as a virtual boxed set and plowed through them in about 4 days. The story concerns what happens when a generational starship finally makes landfall on a habitable planet after six generations in space, the successes and failures. Balancing on a genetic knife edge as they struggle to maintain a viable gene pool.

It starts very slow. Some of the characters get little more than a sketch. A couple are as cardboard as Leon Rosset. It’s slow enough I was tempted to DNF, but I’m glad I went through to the end of volume 3, and not just because I’m cheap and already owned it.

I felt like Green’s storytelling picked up as the series continued. The plot’s careful weaving in the first book became more engaging the deeper I got into the story. Ethan and Cariad, the two main characters, took on more depth. I became more invested in the story as I went along and will be going back to pick up volumes 4-6 when I get a chance.

But don’t take my word for it. I’d suggest you grab a sample but the box set is free as of this writing. Maybe check it out for yourself.

About the Newsletter
I’m still publishing it on the 15th of the month. You don’t need to subscribe to get a mid-month update from me. You can find them archived on my newsletter’s public page at Kit.

Looking Forward

I know I say this every month but the story really is coming along. I’m closing in on the halfway mark, finally. I’m not sure how the story ends, but I have a feel for where it’s going and how it might get there. I just need the energy to get it done.

Perhaps more important, I’m feeling better than I have in, well, years. I’m still not 100%. Maybe this is my new 100%, I don’t know. I’m more optimistic about this story than I have been in a while. All I can do is keep plugging away.

Eventually, it’ll get there and we can all move on to something else.

Until next month, safe voyage.

-N

Yeah. March did not go as planned. The 40 Mile March turned into … something else.

But it’s spring and hope springs eternal.

Status

The Wizard’s Cat (Book 2 of the Wizard’s Butler)
I didn’t realize that so many people didn’t make the connection between the Cat and the Butler. The book itself needs the last few quarters of the story filled out. A weasely way to say I’ve got a long way to go but I know where I think it might end up. Execution, as always, is the problem.

Everything Else
Nothing else has happened. If it’s not Cat, it’s not happening. I have not abandoned Ishmael or Tanyth or anything. I’ve got some thoughts about where all those characters might go. I’m making a concentrated effort to put my limited brain cells on the Cat.

What Am I Reading?

I finished off the existing volumes of Stephan Morse’s Continue Online series and Nobody103’s Mother of Learning (a 4 volume series at the moment). Lately, I’ve been zipping through Darynda Jones’s Betwixt and Between series. I’m up to book 4 in just a few days. They’re just so much fun, my reading has been on the upswing after the February doldrums.

The basic set up for this midlife magic tale involves a set of chosen ones – women, naturally – whose powers get passed down through the generations from legendary roots. In the first three books, our plucky heroine – aptly named Defiance Dayne – in the aftermath of a marriage gone horribly wrong, inherits a historic Salem manse with a dark past from a woman she’s never heard of.

Secrets abound. Snarky dialog sparks up the pages and kept me smiling as I read. In book 4 the sidekick becomes the main character but the secrets, and the snark, continue. I’m about halfway through and already looking for the next book.

Content warning: There are some steamy bits. Lots of lusty thoughts but a few paragraphs that might not be exactly safe for work.

But don’t take my word for it. Maybe grab a sample of book 1 and see for yourself.

Seriously, Continue Online and Mother of Learning took up all my reading time last month. Some mitigating circumstances? I read only half as much (according to the Kindle app on my phone) for the first three weeks of the month. I blame Enshrouded.

About the Newsletter
I’m still publishing it on the 15th of the month. They’re not all getting delivered but you don’t
need to subscribe to get a mid-month update from me. You can find them archived on my newsletter’s public page.

Looking Forward

A few people have suggested that I put the Cat aside and write something less fraught. I have to admit I’ve considered it more than once but I just can’t gin up any excitement knowing that this story needs to get finished. While some of that impetus comes from knowing so many of you are waiting for it (and have been, literally, for years at this point), most of it comes from me. I need to see this story through for my own sake.

I’m having to relearn so much after The Troubles in 2022. How to eat. How to sleep. How to deal with, well, everything since I didn’t actually die but thought for a good portion of the year I might.

As I told somebody when I was working on editing the Marva Collins series, which I roughed out before I got sick, the story hadn’t changed, but I had.

I’m still – even after all this time – still working through those changes. I’m honestly convinced it will be worth the effort.

And the wait.

Until next month, safe voyage.

N