Ah, there’s nothing quite like the smell of raw sewage in the morning.

Somewhere near my house there’s a sewer line issue. It’s not my house, thankfully. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. Fortunately, the smell isn’t really noticeable in my office or bedroom. Anywhere there’s an open window, though… ugh.

I’m currently taking a break from the last two chapters of WINTERBORN to get a short story I owe finished and turned in on time. THE GHOST WOLF OF DEEP ELEVEN is one of those shorts people are either going to love or hate. It’s mostly done, except for a few of the fiddly bits. Just one of those stories that started out as a joke response to a meme and went from there.

I still need to write my own CHICKS IN TANK TOPS story for my anthology. I’m getting a firmer idea of the word count needed. I’m still deciding on the title of the short, sort of. I mean, I have the title, but I’m not 100% sold on it just yet. It may change. About half of the authors have turned in their stories already, which I hear is fantastic since there’s still two weeks left. It shouldn’t be too hard and I’ll probably knock it out once I’m done with WINTERBORN.

Speaking of… I decided to delay the release for WINTERBORN and the final few books of the Kin Wars series until 2022. There are a lot of little reasons but the biggest issue I’ve had is getting the books out closer together. So the goal next year is to get them all out before Christmas, which means an April 2022 release for WINTERBORN, a June 2022 release for HAMMERFALL, an August 2022 release (unless something bigger pushes it back to September 2022) for BLOODFORGE, and an October 2022 release for BRIGHTBLADE.

The reasons BLOODFORGE might be delayed a month is because I’m guessing, based on research and past release schedules, that MONSTER HUNTER MEMOIRS: FEVER will be released from Baen Books in August 2022. This is a hunch, mind you, and not concrete. I’ve heard nothing from them on this. However, Baen historically has released Monster Hunter International books in August or September. Granted, the Monster Hunter Memoirs series were all over the place when it came to releases, but even the first one in the series came out in August, so we shall see.

If my grand plan continues to steamroll along (and it’s looking good so far), November 2022 might very well see the publication of the CHICKS IN TANK TOPS anthology. Of course, it could always be bumped back until 2023, which doesn’t bother me one bit. Hey, I get to edit an anthology for Baen. My first anthology ever, too. Once I turn it in, doesn’t matter when it comes out. It’s simply going to be awesome.

I would like to write two more books either late this year or early next, but that’s entirely dependent on timing. I know I can write a book in 3-4 weeks. The question is, how fried will I be afterward? Or better still, how much will it suck?

Fortunately, outside of another short story I promised, it doesn’t look too bad after December this year. Unless, of course, the epic fantasy series gets picked up. Then things get crazy.

I mentioned I got a new roof finally on the house, and promptly no rain for almost two months. LOL. However, it’s been raining for a few days now and the leak appears to be gone, so I’m happy to say that replacing the roof (more importantly, spending all that money… ugh) was worth it. Unfortunately, in that time without rain, I’m 99.99999% certain my lawn died and I’m going to have to re-seed it. And my refrigerator is making weird noises. And the stove…

Kids, just an FYI — home ownership is worth it, but damn is it expensive. And if someone says “Oh, it’s a cute little fixer-upper” when selling you your first home, unless you are into that sort of stuff, have all the tools and equipment necessary, run. Run as fast as you can.

The cats are doing well. Curly and Charlotte still despise each other. Considering they’re (allegedly) from the same litter, I’m sort of surprised. Casper almost died the other day, but that was due to him walking across my keyboard and rebooting my laptop in the middle of my writing, my autosave failing, which in turn cost me an entire day’s worth of work. I’m sure if he could apologize, he wouldn’t.

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