Update: Moving toward setting up preorders, really and truly

My, look at that, October tomorrow! Wow.

Of course, I do know where September went: it went into the Griffin Mage trilogy. And, yes, into Silver Circle, sure. A teensy bit into “Midwinter.”

So, I don’t normally worry about daily, weekly, or monthly planners. But, lately, I keep having to pause and think: What should I do today? What should I do tomorrow? What do I most need to have completed by the end of the week?

Like almost everyone, probably, I tend to be too optimistic in what I think I can get done in a day or a week. Nevertheless, here’s my best guess:

I think I should be sending Silver Circle Part I to proofreaders on Wednesday; that is, October 2nd. I think I should be sending Part II to the second round of early readers next Monday, October 7th. I hope (notice that this isn’t as clear as “I think”) that I should be sending Part III to the earliest readers by the Monday after that, October 14th.

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I’m debating with myself about preorder release dates. Remember that I need to drop each book a minimum of a couple weeks early at my Patreon. I think I can just about guarantee Part I will drop at my Patreon in October; I think I can just about guarantee that for Part II as well. Part III is a little iffy. I think by the middle of November? But I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.

My goal, such as it is, is to decide about preorder dates no later than October 7th and put all three books up for preorder. The decision will have to do with — staggered preorder dates? In that case, maybe November, November, December. All three at once? In that case, maybe early December.

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Public Service Message

Recently, someone left my gate open, which this time I realized almost before the dogs were heading out into the wide world. The boys were like, Did you say cookies? Who cares about the gate when all the cookies are in the house! The girls were like, Woo-hoo! The gate’s open! This was briefly terrifying, until Joy — she is BY FAR the most likely to sprint into the woods and get lost — decided that she, too, was interested in the immediate prospect of yummy, yummy cookies and therefore turned around and came back through the gate. Yes, we are working on a good recall. No, I don’t trust her, especially if there is a bunny anywhere in sight.

Did you realize that it is now easy to customize metal (outdoor) signs at Amazon and order whatever you want? Two signs like this should be arriving shortly:

I’m going to post one at the actual gate and one at the point where the sidewalk from the gate hits the driveway. I hope very much that this will end the problem of people leaving the gate open, which has happened three times this year, which I swear to God is taking years off my life. I’ve become highly phobic and literally go through periods where I get up and go outside to check on the gates twenty or thirty times a day, even when no one has been over as far as I know, just so I can re-confirm the gates are indeed shut.

I’m done saying nicely, “Please remember to close the gate.” The next step after these signs will be a padlock with exactly one key and a flat statement that no one at all needs to go through that gate, ever, unless I’m standing right there watching. BUT, I hope the signs will do the job, and I hereby suggest that anybody with dogs check out these neat signs, which are reasonably priced, come in lots of sizes, and are not at all difficult to customize.

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