And it's a wrap

I've finished my editing pass on what I've lovingly called my #BehemothNovel on Twitter. It was originally 127k words, and I've cut 22k without any great losses to the story. I've become a much tighter writer in those 5-6 years since that draft. Now much depends on whether Riptide thinks it can sell that. (I don't have a say in acquisitions.)

There's also a blog tour going for our most recent release, If It Drives, here. There's prizes to win.

I wrenched my back a few days ago, but went immediately to an acupuncturist and he did the needle thing (my first--never been), something with electricity, cupping and finally a massage. He did manage to keep me mobile rather than allow the back to freeze up, like it normally does. Five days later, I'm good--though my shoulder hurts from, I assume, compensating/tension. But I can walk and lift and put my socks on, so it's all good.

Now, I've been teasing people with my WWII novel for more than a year. It's the novel I hint at in Skybound, and the project is already about 30k, though I kept getting sidetracked with other books and real life issues. Now, with the Behemoth Novel in the can, and in between getting edits back on a different project, I'm returning to the WWII novel I've dubbed the Birds Book. Today I'll clean up my desk and arrange my research books all around me, then put the most recent version on my Kindle and re-read what I've written. I expect to go in deep and hard--that's not a book that's easy to write, or even light and funny, so I'm expecting to work on this for the next 6-7 weeks (end-May is about my estimate) and do pretty much nothing else but come up for air. (And those edits.)

In other news, I read Line and Orbit, which I enjoyed, especially for the evocative writing and the scale of the worldbuilding. It made me want to write some military sci-fi along the lines of Dark Edge of Honor again, but that will have to wait for a little. I'd definitely want to have a plot first.

Along a similar vein, I've also finished watching The Pacific. The Pacific Theatre is not something that Germans are usually very aware of, so quite a bit of that was news to me. I'd be interested to read a military history that focuses on that overall conflict (including Korea and Vietnam) with a strategic/sociological focus. Unlike with Band of Brothers, I won't be buying the book by Hugh Ambrose--as a military historian, Ambrose just rubs me the wrong way, which is quite possibly my fault more than his, but then, maybe I'm just not his target audience. Anyway. I do have a tiny bunny that's based on an event in the Pacific Theatre ever since I watched the still excellent World at War.

So, yeah, my headspace will be decidedly WWII/apocalyptic in the next six weeks. I'm hoping I'll make some serious progress by my birthday, that would be nice. :)