So, do you know what I did on Sunday?
A) I corrected the last, the very last, typo in SC #1, spotted by the exceedingly sharp eyes of both my mother and GillC, and thank you, Gill! (And Mom.) It was “you yield” where it should have been “he yield.” The version at my Patreon should be correct at this point. All the versions should be correct at this point. Do let me know if I’m wrong about this being the very last typo, of course.
B) I heavily revised chapter 6 of SC #3 AND (this is the fun part) experienced a sudden epiphany regarding an important plot element that will seriously impact several later chapters.
C) So then I said AARGH!!!! and stomped off to do other things unrelated to writing, while questioning my basic ability to write books at all. Insert whatever expletives occur to you. Those same expletives no doubt occurred to me.
D) Started listening to the audiobook of Piranesi to soothe my nerves. This is indeed a soothing audiobook and I hereby recommend it for that purpose.
By the way, I notice the German edition of the audiobook has a much nicer cover than the American version:
I do like that much more than my version. Well, for audio, what matters is the narration, of course, and it’s good for this book. As I say, soothing. I’ve just listened to the part where the narrator describes the arrival of the albatross.
Meanwhile! The preorder dates are getting really close for both SC #1 and the entire Griffin Mage trilogy, and so last week, I checked all the paperback versions in order to make sure, for example, that the Tables of Contents had page numbers — they do now — and that the page numbers were correct — they are now — and discovered that in fact the FORMATTING of the page numbers was highly weird for the third book. I DON’T KNOW WHY. I used the exact same template for all three paperbacks, but only in the third book were the page numbers suddenly placed higher or lower, or centered rather than on the left, or a different font, or just the wrong number altogether. [Feel free to insert a lot more expletives here].
It might have been, in fact I’m dead sure it would have been, easier to delete the whole darn file, go back to the template, confirm the page numbers were correct in the template, and start over. However, by the time I realized that, I was checking the page numbers for the umpteenth time and by then I thought, never mind, I’ll just slog ahead.
So that’s done, reasonably satisfactorily. What a pain.
I also created a fast, super fast, newsletter, just to let people know that SC #1 is available at my Patreon and coming up soon at Amazon. Those of you who subscribe should have gotten that newsletter this morning. Or if not, you soon should. I scheduled it for 8 AM, but I don’t actually know if that’s Eastern or Central or what. There is, sorry, no chapter of “Midwinter” or any other story in this newsletter. Silver Circle has eaten ninety percent of my free time lately, the remaining ten percent went to fixing the dratted page numbers in GM #3 and various other tasks associated with making sure the preorders are ready to go, and hopefully in November I will have SOME time for OTHER things.
I hope many of you had a more relaxing week, or at least weekend.
***
I also had the gate of the arboretum — the fenced acre and a half at my house — replaced. I also asked the person who did the gate to walk the whole fence line with a critical eye and check for security, and lo, he found two (2) holes big enough for Joy or Haydee to scoot out if they had been the ones to discover the holes, which is not helping my general phobia about Joy getting out and racing into the woods and getting lost. (I’m not nearly as phobic about the boys, the older girls, or even Haydee. None of them are nearly as likely to be a mile away before they realize they’re lost.)
Anyway, I was paranoid enough to avert potential catastrophe, so now the holes are fixed and the gate is fixed. However, I haven’t had time to take the dogs out to run. This coming week for sure.
Here’s a cute picture, not of dogs running madly around in the arboretum, but a cozy domestic image of cross-species friendship. They were asleep until I held up my phone to take a picture. I might as well have said COOKIES, the way their eyes popped open.
Please Feel Free to Share:
That amount of adorableness is enough to undo much expletive-inducing frustration!
Oh those eyes!
Looking forward to the next Silver Circle instalment (and hoping for more Ezekiel …)
Gill, you will certainly see plenty more Ezekiel!
I swear, all pets have a sixth sense for when you’re taking a photo. They just know, and either pose, or hide.
Looking forward to the new books.
Our weekend was not exactly relaxing, but it was positive. Teen participated in a craft fair for the first time; sold prints of paintings, handspun yarn and candles. It went well.
That sounds like fun! I haven’t been to a craft fair for a long time. They used to have a big one in St L in the fall. I should look it up and see if that’s happened yet.
Handspun yarn sounds like the tip of an iceberg of crafts — maybe dyeing too, weaving, knitting?
I’m the knitter, but I knit much more slowly – There are people who can knit a complicated adult sized sweater in a day or two. I am not among them, it’s more like six months for me due to trying to avoid RSI flare ups, plus just find time to sit and read & knit – than the Teen can make yarn. It’s been collecting. So, some sold, more people were interested and took contact information, a few wanted lessons. For the last year it’s been natural colored wools, which come in a rather larger variety than black and white. Just off the top of my head: Brown, fawn, grey-is-the-label-but-it-looks-brown until set against a truer grey from a different breed. I keep being reminded of a book by Joyce Gard that I read as a child, which contained a special breed of sheep, bred for specific colors. Our runaway boy protagonist had picked up a newborn black lamb from the dead mother, and was bringing him up. The sheep farmer had been working on getting a black for a while. So the kid gets a new home and everything ends better than it began.
probably will try dying eventually. Dabbled in it years ago. Maybe. the browsers for yarn were definitely more interested when they heard it was all natural, no dyes, no anything but regular wool processing. If that holds for other sales attempts, I imagine dyeing would not be high priority. I’m doing the hard business of holding my tongue instead of overwhelming the kid with my opinions. No interest as yet in weaving. The spinning actually helps the Teen’s fitness and stamina. Just moving the treadles on the wheel – I was boggled. But it’s an hour or more of constant motion – it’s got to do something for you.
Newsletter — received!
Preorder — check!
Now the comments above have me wondering exactly how much of Ezekiel we are going to see ;)
Thank you for that picture of complete adorableness. I don’t know if you use Chrome, but there’s an extension called Make America Kittens Again. If you add that to your Chrome browser, any pictures of politicians are replaced by cute fluffy kittens. Supposed to do great things for the blood pressure. (You can specify which politicians get replaced with kittens, iirc.)