Update: So there’s the newsletter sorted out for the rest of the year

Okay, so this past week, I decided to write a few more chapters of Sekaran. I’ve got 7 chapters complete at this point, plus very brief notes for another five chapters, but even if I work on something totally different THIS week, that’s enough for the newsletter. I mean, two more chapters of This Hour … or maybe I’ll just drop the rest of the story in the June newsletter, since it seems like it’s time to move on to something else. Then a chapter of Sekaran every month and there you go, that’s the rest of 2025.

Whether I’ll write the rest of it this year or not, I don’t really know. It wouldn’t be hard. I know what I’m doing with it, unless alternate inspiration strikes.

It’s a bit unusual. I’ve said that, right? One of the things that ordinarily ups the wordcount is transitions, and just generally getting from Point A to Point B. Adding new characters is the other thing that increases wordcount. While both of those things are relevant for Sekaran, they’re a lot less relevant than usual because this story isn’t exactly a story in the ordinary sense. It’s a series of vignettes and scenes with very little transitional material in between. Also, there’s not exactly a plot. Instead, every chapter involves a meeting between Sekaran and Aras that occurs at an important moment, and the throughline involves the evolution of their relationship from the time they first meet as boys to the time — this is the plan, I haven’t written this part yet — that Sekaran becomes king. That will carry us into the future, obviously. The rest of the series will catch up to that point eventually, I expect.

So it’s been fun to work on, but I do consider this a minor work, not a real novel. It’ll probably wind up about 200 pages (I know, right? But it’s possible I’m right about that for once). I’ll publish it as a book, I expect, but I’ll also have to handle the description in a way that makes it clear what this is, and isn’t.

Stuff that slowed me down a trifle last week: four extra Cavaliers came to stay with me for variable lengths of time, three of my friend Deb’s dogs (Leo, who is the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or great-great-grandfather of most of my dogs, plus Nick, an incredibly sweet but pushy dog, and Bon Bon, who is also incredibly sweet and much less pushy) and a puppy of mine from a few year’s past, Leda’s Tiny Boy Four. Who is no longer tiny AT ALL, which is why it’s unwise to name the smallest puppy in the litter Tinkerbell or Little Bug or whatever comes to mind in that general realm of names. TB4 (real name Piolo) will be with me nearly a month, while the other three only stayed for a week and have already departed for their Real Home. I’m almost sorry to see them go because one of them became instant buddies with Piolo, who is going to miss him. I’ll post a short clip at my Patreon. Meanwhile —

Leda with Boy One

Still spring here, not summer — amazingly cool weather most days. Here’s my favorite tree that’s flowering right now:

This is a Japanese tree lilac, Syringa reticulata, which is indeed in the same genus as the ordinary shrub lilacs you see everywhere in the spring. Not scented, or not enough to notice; BUT, as you see, a handsome small tree. We had two trees of various kinds die in that planter before I chose to try again with this one, which has been utterly trouble-free. I believe this is probably ‘Ivory Silk,’ a common variety in the nursery trade, and I highly, highly recommend it for a completely trouble-free, non-quirky, adaptable, cooperative small tree. The flowers look whiter than this generally. They’re barely opening here, and the cloudy weather turned the flowers to this creamy color.

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