The Dogs Having Their Day

Once again, Summer's dog days are upon us, as July exits stage left and August waits impatiently in the wings to slap us silly with its heat and humidity.  The weather here in the Heartland has been hot these last few weeks, with a bit of rain and constant, interminable humidity.  Nothing new here to see, move along, move along...

That being said, there's lots of changes these last months and more to come.  I started bike riding in June and this has become my main source of exercise, now that the landscaping in the front yard is complete.  A quick calculation shows I carried about two tons of stones (yes, literally, one 25 lb. stone at a time) to do the work, not to mention about a half ton each of rock and dirt.  And plants.  But it was necessary (soil erosion over the last few years around the porch) and it came out looking good.  Now it's nutgrass and other weeds trying to infiltrate the back yard, so that will keep me busy for a while; likely until September rolls around.

In the meantime, and back on the subject of writing and related activities, my editor has the first ten chapters of Blood Secret (The Ardwellian Chronicles, Book Five) and I'm searching desperately for inspiration to complete the book.  I have about 60,000 more words to go, I know the important points, but the characters seem to have taken the late summer off.  Likely they're all skinny-dipping somewhere in the Silver River. 

Speaking of skinny-dipping, I wrote a scene in this story unlike any I've written before; about a character's "first time".  I hope I did it justice.

Osfest 8 in Omaha is coming up this weekend and I'll be there with books in hand and random-page readings at my table.  Looking forward to a different convention experience and a new crowd.  

I'm also collecting info for the next Compendium, "Mother Darkness".  "Champions" was (mostly) about the good guys; this one will be about the villains you love to hate.  A good villain makes a story much more fun for the author and (hopefully) for the readers as well. Nothing worse than a wimpy villain. 

So like the lazy days of Summer, this post really doesn't have a lot to say other than "keep cool and enjoy the final six weeks or so of heat".  We all know in a few months we'll be complaining about the cold.