Winding Down the Summer

Since returning from Worldcon, I’ve been working as hard as I could on The Warlock’s Army. I got some story notes down, even with the hustle and bustle of the convention. The story is now about 140 pages and approaching 40,000 words, so definitely no longer a novella. In fact, the plot of this novel is only beginning to get complicated. I have fun times ahead, writing it.

On the other hand, just after we returned, I got back a personal rejection on a short story. After a few days of rejecting their rejection, I did some minor revisions. The publisher didn’t say they wanted to see it again, so I’m prepping it for another submission window that opens on Monday.

Speaking of Monday, it is now just a few days until the new school year starts. First up will be a couple of training sessions on Monday and Tuesday. I’m not obligated to attend, but they’re introducing new staff and going over things like discipline policy that are important to know. I hope they also will talk about what we should do if masked goons show up and start grabbing parents or students. The district might be trying to keep its head in the sand on that one, though.

In addition, this is a bargaining year for my union. It seems to have gone smoothly this year, no rumbles of a strike or anything like that. We have a meeting on Tuesday evening to go over the changes and vote on the new contract.

At home, the excitement is that we had a tree taken down. The yard looks really different without it. Now I have the pleasure of re-doing the landscape, which will have much more sun than before. Hard work, but it’s something I enjoy. I’ll be going to a plant sale on Saturday, to get a better look at some of my ideas.

That’s about it around here. Hope your August is going nicely.

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