Out of Order

The paperback layout and cover for Masters of Air & Fire are complete. Only now do I realize that Amazon wants you to do the e-book before a printed book! Ah, well. I’ll start on the e-book layout when I get done with this post.

Although Air & Fire is taking up a lot of my attention, I am still working on the rough draft of my newest short story. I felt like it was stalling out, and backed up to figure out where I got off track. The issue in this case is with the setting. I thought it would be cool to have a secret shrine hidden underneath another building. A rival religion wasn’t able to raze the shrine because of magical protection, so they built their own temple over it and tried to literally bury the old shrine. As I got into it, though, that setting wasn’t working. If you’re going to have a mystery, it helps when lots of suspects have access to the site. Today I sketched out several alternatives for where the shrine might be. One of them sprang to life for me, and I have that to push me in a new direction. Since one of my resolutions is to write more short stories, I’m glad to be working actively toward that.

The other complication is in my extended family. Our father is 94 and has been declining rapidly. Since early September, he seems to be moving from one medical facility to another. My younger sister is carrying the load on this, and then there was a huge fight over Christmas (no doubt due to stress and worry about Dad). Both sides say they aren’t speaking to each other, but they are all talking to me.

I don’t have enough oil to pour on these waters. But I do have an e-book to lay out, so I’d better get to it!

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