The Ups, the Downs, and the Sideways (OR… I’m not lazy, I swear!)

It has been…

Y’all know. Wherever you’re from, wherever you’ve been, if you have access to digital media (hello, from across the internet!) you know that the past season of life has been disruptive and destructive in almost every way measurable. I hope that you have found the mechanisms that protect your mind, your body, and your relationships as best as possible. I’ve been working hard at that, and let me affirm that it don’t come cheap.

I had hoped to have a new series that started coming out in June since, yanno, I had the first book done and published in a private sale in May. I was working on the rest of the books and I had up a good head of steam to get them done, polished, and ready for sale at the same one-a-month rate that I did with Tell. It was a beautiful plan.

I underestimated a lot of things. You guys remember all of the ‘I’ve been training for this my entire life’ memes that the introverts were putting out in April and May? Yeah. I felt that way through about the halfway point of June, and then some stuff went sideways on me and the world didn’t work right any more.

Still doesn’t, actually.

So. I work by myself in an office in my house. Have done for years. There are distractions and there is the particularly personal difficulty of trying to have audio conversations with people whose mouths I can’t see moving (I learned decades ago that I lip read despite having perfectly functional ears, because my eyes process language so much better than my ears do), but I got a lot of stuff done. A lot of stuff. Good stuff.

And then I couldn’t focus. I would have four different things open that I was trying to do, and I wouldn’t be able to do any of them for long enough to actually make progress on them. I was forever trying to catch up on what I’d done just before, and then I’d get distracted to another task. For someone who sets very regimented, numerical goals, it has been maddening. Around-about late April, early May, I came to the firm understanding that *stuff was different*, and I took my foot off the gas.

(Just want to break in here and say – as far as I can tell, the constant sense of distraction and inability to get things done is very common. *Stuff is hard* y’all, and not because it used to be that hard.)

I’ve been working all summer. I’m still making progress at the space adventure series I wanted to launch in June. And I’m close. Like, Painfully and Maddeningly close. I’m working up to covers that I’ll put up reveals on as soon as I have them, and at some point I’m going to ask myself if the reason they aren’t done is because they don’t *have* to be done yet, and just push the button.

Because you guys are here. And those of you who bought from the private sale in May have signaled that you would very much like the next books, thankyouverymuch. And this is what I do. I write the books. I finish the books. I get the books to you.

Life got weird and hard and complicated in some pretty universal ways (and there have been some very personal tectonic shifts as well that won’t show up on my site except perhaps very tangentially), and it slowed me down. I’m sorry. Genuinely. I feel like a first book is a contract with my readers, and I have not made good on it like I wanted to.

I just wanted to let you know that I’m still here, I’m still putting in the words, that I haven’t forgotten, and that I appreciate all y’all for being a big part of the light at the end of the tunnel for me. We aren’t there, yet, out at the end of that tunnel, but I know it’s ahead of us, and I know you guys are going to be there.

Ups, downs, and sidewayses notwithstanding.