1) Puppies! Bree, though suffering through an excessively dramatic whelping, presented me with a tricolor male puppy (bottom) and two absolutely beautiful girl puppies (side by side), one tricolor and the other blenheim. ‘Blenheim’ is what we call the red and white color in Cavaliers. Here they are!
2) In a week, I’ll be able to x-ray Adora to see how many puppies she is carrying. She isn’t very large. I’m thinking I’ll be lucky if she has more than one. I am just the archetype for doing everything right and yet still getting smaller-than-average litters, which is very frustrating. Plus if she only has one, that more than likely means a c-section because single puppies are very often oversized. I keep saying that if I get a couple of really nice puppies from these litters, it will make the 2800 miles of driving (to the stud dogs) worth while, but I admit, it would also be nice (and different!) to actually, you know, break even someday.
3) I am just barely starting to work on my newest ms again … while waiting for Bree to whelp, I started re-reading Robin McKinley‘s Sunshine, which was a perfect choice. Good enough to be distracting, long enough to take up hours and hours, but a book I’ve read before so I could really concentrate on Bree even while reading it.
But now I’m re-reading Dragonhaven. Still, pretty soon hopefully I’ll be able to get myself to focus on my own new book.
It is a werewolf book. I know! Don’t say it! It’s Patricia Briggs’ fault I jumped on this bandwagon, because I love her Mercy Thompson series. Anyway, mine aren’t quite werewolves. And no vampires! I am thinking YA for this one, but I wouldn’t swear that’s the way it will turn out. I actually do know a fair bit about the plot, more than usual for this point in the work.
Then the other one I have started — I’m thinking definitely YA, a fairy-tale type of story. I think the very first pages I’ve got are good, but I’m not sure about the rest. Not sure the tone is right. Gotta let it set for a little while and then take another look.
Hopefully I will complete at least one short YA fantasy by sometime this fall, or surely over the winter at the latest. Eventually I totally intend to start working on a more complicated adult fantasy. We’ll see how this plan goes!
4) Got Saltation, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. I liked it. I liked the stricter focus on Theo. I don’t think it’s their best, but it was pretty good. I’m a bit nervous about where it might be going. Usually I don’t like it when a main character becomes üaut;ber-powerful, which sort of looks like it might happen. But I’m looking forward to their next book, now they’ve got all their characters set up for the next phase of the story.
Started a thriller. I like the author usually, but not this one. Life’s too short to force yourself to finish a book. I put it on the discard pile and grabbed another. Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card. That was more like it! Card can write. Also finally read The Magic Thief. A charming book, but I have too many others sitting around to order the sequels immediately.
5) On a different and personal note, here comes Lord of the Changing Winds — on the shelves at this very moment, or as near as makes no difference! You know I am going to be googling my name and the title every couple of days for months, probably — especially since Land of the Burning Sands will quickly follow Book One in just a month or so. Just went through the copy-edited ms for Book Three (Law of the Broken Earth). It was nice to have time to read through it carefully, especially since I caught a typo the copy editor missed (they don’t miss many!).
Got another look at a revised cover for Book Three. Frankly, I’ve liked all the iterations of this cover, so I’m pretty sure I’ll wind up very happy with the final version.
Really amazing to think the whole trilogy will hit the shelves in a single year. I love Orbit’s policy that fast is good! Love it as a reader as well as a writer!
It was totally worth writing the last two books of the Griffin Mage trilogy so fast — I mean, I gave up not only TV to get that done, but also very nearly gave up reading as well! That is a sacrifice! But I’d so do it again, especially as it’s already hard to remember exactly how hard it was.
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